Latin America’s No. 4 oil producer has seen oil output rise to record highs mainly due to better security, heavy crude and incremental production at existing fields, experts say.
Oil production rose 2.3 percent in May compared with April, the agency said.
Output from state-run Ecopetrol and its associates surged 20.4 percent to 825,000 bpd last month versus May 2010, the body said in a report.
Total natural gas sales fell 9.5 percent to 1.005 billion cubic feet per day (cfpd) in May versus a year earlier, it said.
Once dismissed as a failing state mired in drug violence and guerrilla war, Colombia is enjoying a flood of foreign investment in its petroleum and mining sectors.
But violence still continues.
On Wednesday, leftist guerrillas kidnapped three Chinese oil industry workers and their translator in the jungle of southern Colombia, authorities said.
Colombian Energy Minister Carlos Rodado told a Reuters summit in late March that petroleum production should end 2011 at a minimum of 920,000 bpd while gas would rise slightly to 1.25 billion cfpd.
