Category: Colombia

The International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group, has signed an agreement to purchase equity worth up to $15 million in Grupo Petrotesting, a Colombian oil and gas company. The company said it will use the funds to help with its expansion plans in the region.

ISA, Colombia’s largest energy transport company, is considering issuing $240 million of preferred shares and $300 million of bonds to finance the company’s international expansion plans and improve its debt profile. ISA is involved in projects in Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama and has plans to enter the Brazilian market soon.

Colombia’s external debt as a percentage of GDP fell to 28.5% in January, down from 32.1% for the same period in 2005. Total external debt reached $38.6 billion, of which $24.2 billion was public debt and $14.4 billion private debt. The government attributes the fall to GDP growth as well as debt replacement.

Colombia Móvil, known as OLA, the mobile phone operator of Colombia’s two largest telcos – Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Bogotá (ETB) and Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) – have attracted three potential buyers. Chile’s Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones, the UK’s Digicel, and Luxembourg-based Millicom International Cellular have all expressed an interest in buying the controlling stake in OLA, according to a filing with the stock exchange regulator made by EPM. In March, ETB and EPM announced that control of OLA was up for sale despite previous assurances that they were merely looking for a strategic investor to capitalize the mobile operator.

Bolivia has said that it too will leave the Community of Andean Nations (CAN) and become part of the Mercosur trade bloc instead, should member nations Colombia, Ecuador and Peru follow through with their free trade agreements with the US. Earlier this week, Bolivian president Evo Morales called on Venezuela, CAN’s fifth member nation, to reconsider its withdrawal from the trade bloc and urged dialogue with the other member nations.

Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, has called on Venezuela to reconsider its decision to leave CAN, the Andean trade bloc which comprises Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, has responded by saying that he will reconsider his country’s withdrawal from CAN if Peru and Colombia reconsider going ahead with their free trade agreements with the US. Last week Chávez announced he was taking Venezuela out of CAN to protect it from “being flooded by US products” from Peru and Colombia.

Venezuelan state-owned petrochemical company Pequiven has bought 47.2% of Colombian firm Monómeros, which produces raw materials for the agrochemicals industry. Pequiven paid $53.7 million to state companies Ecopetrol and IFI for their shares in Cartagena-based Monómeros to take the controlling stake.

Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol has announced that it is likely to be accepting bids from companies to run its pension fund, worth $3.8 billion, in June. The bidders will have to guarantee a return for the fund on a par with inflation plus six percentage points.

Meanwhile, eight bidders have qualified to bid for the license to explore and develop 1.7 million hectares in the Colombian province of Meta for unproven oil reserves of around 3 billion barrels together with state-owned oil firm Ecopetrol. The government is looking for investment commitment of around $1.6 billion that it estimates will increase daily production from its current level of 60,000 barrels of crude up to 200,000 barrels. Bidders include Exxon Mobil and Chevron of the US, France’s Total, Brazilian Petrobras, BP of the UK, Russian Lukoil, Spain’s Repsol YPF and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp.