Ecopetrol on Thursday announced plans to invest $3.558 billion in production this year, reports Portfolio.com.
The Colombian state-owned oil company intends to increase production to 600,000 barrels of oil-equivalent per day in 2010, up from 2009’s rate of 521,000.
“Everything is directed towards meeting the production goal of 1 million barrels per day in 2015,” said company president Javier Gutierrez.
Ecopetrol plans to drill thirteen oil wells in Colombia this year, and seven more will be located variously in Brazil, Peru, and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
The oil company’s output grew 12% in both 2008 and 2009, and it plans to maintain the same rate of growth this year.
However, Gutierrez stated that the planned growth would not come at the expense of safety or quality standards; “It must be a clean production,” he said.
The investment follows investor disappointment at the January announcement of the increase in the state oil firm’s proven reserves in 2009. Earlier in January the company was awarded $1 billion in export aid by the U.S. ExIm Bank.
