The Colombian Government has announced that at least 22 firms are qualified to bid for the new exploration contracts for 20 oil blocks.
This is part of the government’s bid to boost its oil reserves by one billion barrels.
Firms can present their bids from tomorrow and the results will be declared on 16 July, reported Reuters.
National hydrocarbons agency head Luis Miguel Morelli told journalists that firms will gain access to competitors’ offers so that they can alter their terms in order to present more attractive bids to the government.
Morelli was quoted by the news agency as saying: “We expect we can have one billion equivalent barrels of reserves in these 20 blocks.”
Of the oil blocks, 18 are onshore while the remaining two are offshore.
Qualified bidders include CNE Oil and Gas, Occidental Petroleum, Frontera Energy, Ecopetrol, Parex Resources, Hunt Overseas Oil Company, Gran Tierra Energy, GeoPark, Mansarovar Energy, Amerisur Exploracion and Noble Energy.
The country expects to receive more than $1.5bn through oil investments during the coming months from this round of bidding besides the recently launched permanent bidding process.
Firms such as Noble, Exxon, Shell, Parex and Repsol have signed agreements to operate new blocks this year.
Colombia has proven reserves of 1.96 billion barrels with an average production of 865,000 barrels a day. Nearly 50% of the production is allocated for export markets.
The government wants to increase reserves to at least ten years of consumption from the current 6.2 years of consumption.
