Drilling Stops After Rig Attack In Colombia

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Colombian Ecopetrol has announced it was forced to terminate drilling activities in the Meta province.

According to the company, this was caused by a group of people wearing hoods, who threw fuel cylinders at one of the drilling equipment’s power generators, which “could have caused a fire”.

“This event, which put the integrity of workers and the security of the facilities at risk, occurred in one of the five new bores whose operation has been affected since dawn”, the company said on a statement.

Drilling Stops After Rig Attack In Colombia

Ecopetrol explained that community leaders are threatening contractors of possibly excluding them from the local labour selection. They are demanding that the companies hire double the staff needed to operate each bore, “which is not viable in the current crude price conjuncture”, the company said.

“We have called out for the demonstrators promoting this type of proposals to stop acting on them and to use dialogue as the single alternative to overcome differences”, Ecopetrol explained further.

The firm added that it has already informed authorities and emphasised that drilling activities bring “new job opportunities, new hires of goods and services, more returns for municipalities and the possibility of achieving a sustainable growth in an environment of challenging low prices”.

15 th Oil Infrastructure Attack In Colombia

Only last week, Ecopetrol had already announced it had halted pumping on Colombia’s second-biggest oil pipeline after a bombing attributed to the ELN rebel crude, which gave rise to a crude oil spill.

According to a company statement, the attack occurred on a section of the 485-mile Cano-Limon Covenas pipeline near the border with Venezuela and is the 14th such attack this year.

Military sources blamed the incident on the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group, although it was expected that the government and ELN would start peace talks in Ecuador soon.