Ecopetrol SA, Colombia’s largest oil company, said it plans to invest $10.6 billion in 2011 as it seeks to almost double production over the next decade.
The Bogota-based company may spend more if it makes acquisitions, it said today in a statement.
Ecopetrol is exploring for oil across Colombia, and in Peru, Brazil and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico as it spends more than $80 billion through 2020 to almost double output from last year. To fund investment, Ecopetrol may sell a 9.9 percent equity stake, sell bonds abroad or in Colombia, borrow from banks or sell stakes in non-strategic assets, the company has said.
The company will likely sell a stake in itself in 2011’s first half, Energy and Mines Minister Carlos Rodado said today in a broadcast on the country’s presidential website.
Next year’s production will rise to an average of 750,000 barrels per day of oil and natural gas, including units outside of Colombia, the company said. In 2020, Ecopetrol plans to pump 1.3 million barrels of oil a day.
Ecopetrol slid 145 pesos, or 3.5 percent, to 4,000 pesos at 10:44 a.m. in Bogota, as oil prices declined.
