In the first nine months of his presidency President Juan Manuel Santos said Wednseday that national petroleum production increased from 783,000 to 903,000 barrels a day, an increase of 15.3%.
The head of state announced the figures – in line with statistics from the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) – at the 7th International Congress on Mining Petroleum and Energy in Cartagena Wednesday.
Santos also said that the goal for the end of his four-year term is for daily production to reach 1.15 million barrels a day.
In addition 205 contracts are to be signed allowing for the exploration of 570 wells by 2014. Forty-nine have been drilled so far.
Santos said the second big objective is to improve the transport capacity of crude oil with the hope of increasing it from 700,000 barrels a day to 1.4 million barrels a day.
Furthermore Santos wants the capacity of refineries to be increased. He said “We will continue the process of modernizing of refineries – with investment of $8 billion – to increase capacity to 85,000 barrels a day.”
The petroleum industry accounts for 5.4% of Colombia’s GDP. Santos said Wednesday that the Ministry of Defense is working on new policies to increase the security of the petroleum, energy and mining sectors.
