UK’s Amerisur Resources, a South America-focused oil and gas company, said this week its Ecuador-Colombia oil pipeline project, Oleoducto Binacional Amerisur (OBA), will be ready in December, Kallanish Energy understands.
The 5,000-barrel interconnector will transport Amerisur’s crude from its onshore Platanillo operations in south Colombia, to Ecuador by year-end. Originally, the pipeline was slated to be ready to flow product in the first half of 2015.
The company said it expects to receive an operating license from Ecuadorian authorities in 60 days, which shouldn’t have an impact on transporting the first oil.
The infrastructure “will have an important impact on our transport costs and hence netbacks in this period of low oil sales prices,” said Amerisur CEO John Wardle.
In June, Amerisur signed an agreement with Ecuador’s state-owned oil company, Petroamazonas, which operates the local Cuyabeño gathering system and the Amazonas pipeline network (RODA), for construction and use of the pipeline from the Ecuadorian border to the point of connection with RODA.
The London-based firm has also completed a 3D seismic acquisition program in the CPO-5 block, in the Colombian Llanos 34 Basin, with the Loto-2 well set to spud next week.
Last week, Chile’s GeoPark announced the discovery of two new oilfields in Llanos 34 Basin, Kallanish notes.
