ACP as a source of information
Source: El Tiempo
Date: April 29
Headline: Protective suits are delivered
The District Administrative Department of Health of Cartagena received yesterday from Cartagena Refinery and Ecopetrol a total of 5,000 biosecurity suits for the protection of health personnel at the University Hospital of the Caribbean, through an alliance with the District. This was the first delivery of the 54,000 suits with which the refinery will help for the authorities to distribute them to the health service providers in the city. The estimated value of all the suits is 5,847 million.
Source: El Tiempo
Date: April 29
Headline: The tough battle to save jobs
Those affected have filed 245 tutelas, many of them collective, invoking the right to work. The Ministry of the branch has received 1,727 requests from companies that want authorization to dismiss or suspend contracts, and 1,710 complaints from which it has already opened 80 investigations for contempt of the peremptory order to save jobs as much as possible. But it should also be noted that there are companies that, in the midst of difficulty, are fighting to maintain the workforce that – in good times – allowed them to grow and be productive. (…) More tests for Santander. The Barrancabermeja Clinic, in Santander, will become the first medical center in a mid-sized city in Colombia with installed capacity to process 50 daily samples and deliver real-time results of covid-19. The municipality's Mayor's Office and Ecopetrol invested 1,300 million.
Source: El Nuevo Siglo
Date: April 29
Headline: They insist on tax relief to mitigate the economic crisis due to Covid-19
The coronavirus pandemic has triggered an unprecedented economic crisis in the world, forcing governments to act quickly to limit the financial impact of the virus's spread among families, workers, and businesses. With each passing day, the national government tightens measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19, while economic activity is highly impacted. (…) Another sector of the economy with significant effects is hydrocarbons. Regarding the impacts on this sector, it is enough to mention that the price of the benchmark Brent crude fell nearly 50% compared to the end of 2019. Due to the drop in oil prices, Ecopetrol announced a series of measures to adapt to these conditions. Among them are the reduction of costs and expenses by nearly 2 trillion, the cut of investments by 1.2 billion, and a modification to the profit distribution project that had been published on March 2, 2020.
Source: Vanguardia Liberal
Date: April 29
Headline: With new measures, five thousand jobs were reactivated in Santander
The governor of Santander, Mauricio Aguilar, presented to the President of the Republic a balance of the actions to face the coronavirus pandemic and the gradual reactivation of economic activity in the department, following the new provisions of the National Government. The reactivation of road and hospital and educational infrastructure projects in the department of Santander allowed nearly five thousand workers to return to their work activities since last Monday, when the gradual return of the construction and manufacturing sectors was allowed by the Presidency of the Republic. (…) “We went from 8 to 15 days that the tests took due to the backlog in Bogotá, to an average of 2 to 5 days (in the delivery of results) and an average of 80 tests daily at the moment. We enabled laboratories at UIS, the Departmental, and recently the Ecopetrol laboratory in Barrancabermeja,” concluded the Governor of Santander.
Source: RCN Radio.
Date: April 29
Source: elmundo.com
Date: April 29
Headline: Compensate companies and pass the bill of the pandemic to China
Property must be restored as soon as possible and owners compensated for the losses suffered during their overthrow. The way the issue of support or aid to companies by governments to navigate the crisis has been raised is completely wrong, starting with the very ideas of support or aid. (…) In positive international law, there are treaties and jurisprudence of liability for risk for specific hazardous activities such as oil transportation or offshore exploitation, nuclear activities, transportation of radioactive material, submarines and nuclear ships, accumulation and transportation of hazardous waste, etc. (…) To obtain the required liquidity, companies will sell their securities in the secondary market. The securities will be more attractive and will have a broader market if they are convertible into shares of Ecopetrol or other national assets.
GREMIO
Source: El Tiempo
Date: April 29
Headline: Return to the dark age. By: Carlos Castillo Cardona
My friend Cerón, a man with a big heart, says that after having a clean life, respectful of morality and the law, he will end his days with a sentence similar to any corrupt politician, that is, ‘house arrest.’ The confinement of these days has subjected him to all kinds of speculations and ghostly visions of a future that none of us see, but that he predicts with feverish imagination. (…) With the prices at a loss from oil exploitation, production will reach zero and the operation of all implements and devices, direct or indirect, that run on that fuel and its derivatives will be canceled. Transportation will be by animal or human traction. People will tend to migrate to the towns of their origins or those of their relatives.
Source: El Espectador
Date: April 29
Headline: The link between oil and renewable energies
Low oil prices are often a curse for green energy, but this time it could be different because the cost of renewable energies and natural gas has separated from crude oil. The collapse of the crude oil market has caused prices to fall below zero for the first time in history. However, this month, Royal Dutch Shell presented a bold program to reduce carbon emissions and invest in clean energy, while Eni SpA said on Friday that it would consider accelerating its ambitious climate plan.
Source: La República
Date: April 29
Headline: The dollar remains above $4.000, one day before the Central Bank meeting
Sixth consecutive day in which the price of the dollar continues above $4.000, as since last Tuesday, April 21, the currency climbed to this level. This Tuesday, that trend continued, and with an increase of $6.36, the dollar was quoted on average at $4.045,99. (…) According to Ricardo Evangelista, senior analyst at ActivTrades, the session was preceded by a day of mixed feelings in the financial markets, with investors divided between the positive news that cases and deaths are beginning to be under control in the main epicenters of the pandemic, and other negative data from oil that, despite a brief recovery for Brent or lower depreciations for WTI, remain at low levels. (…) In that sense, the latest Reuters closing detailed that the WTI crude oil barrel fell 3.04% to US$12.34 and Brent, a reference for the Colombian market and for the Government's fiscal accounts, increased 2.35% to US$20.46.
Source: Portafolio
Date: April 29
Headline: Brent closed again above US$20
Oil showed an uneven performance yesterday. While Brent ended with a rise of 2.61% to a price of US$20.49, the U.S. WTI maintained its poor performance and ended the day with a loss of 3.41% to US$12.34, after dropping more than 25%.
Source: Portafolio
Date: April 29
Headline: The Ministry of Labor estimates that this year at least 70,000 jobs would be lost.
The country is facing one of the most complex episodes in its recent history due to the two external shocks it has had to confront: the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices. This situation will lead to various impacts on the macro and social indicators of the country, but perhaps one that has required the most attention is related to the unemployment rate, which was already high even before the coronavirus. It closed in 2019 at 10.51% and in February it was 12.21%.
Topics
Source: El Tiempo
Date: April 29
Headline: Return to the dark age. By: Carlos Castillo Cardona
My friend Cerón, a man with a big heart, says that after having a clean life, respectful of morality and the law, he will end his days with a sentence similar to any corrupt politician, that is, ‘house arrest.’ The confinement of these days has subjected him to all kinds of speculations and ghostly visions of a future that none of us see, but that he predicts with feverish imagination. (…) With the prices at a loss from oil exploitation, production will reach zero and the operation of all implements and devices, direct or indirect, that run on that fuel and its derivatives will be canceled. Transportation will be by animal or human traction. People will tend to migrate to the towns of their origins or those of their relatives.
Source: El Espectador
Date: April 29
Headline: The link between oil and renewable energies
Low oil prices are often a curse for green energy, but this time it could be different because the cost of renewable energies and natural gas has separated from crude oil. The collapse of the crude oil market has caused prices to fall below zero for the first time in history. However, this month, Royal Dutch Shell presented a bold program to reduce carbon emissions and invest in clean energy, while Eni SpA said on Friday that it would consider accelerating its ambitious climate plan.
Source: La República
Date: April 29
Headline: The dollar remains above $4.000, one day before the Central Bank meeting
Sixth consecutive day in which the price of the dollar continues above $4.000, as since last Tuesday, April 21, the currency climbed to this level. This Tuesday, that trend continued, and with an increase of $6.36, the dollar was quoted on average at $4.045,99. (…) According to Ricardo Evangelista, senior analyst at ActivTrades, the session was preceded by a day of mixed feelings in the financial markets, with investors divided between the positive news that cases and deaths are beginning to be under control in the main epicenters of the pandemic, and other negative data from oil that, despite a brief recovery for Brent or lower depreciations for WTI, remain at low levels. (…) In that sense, the latest Reuters closing detailed that the WTI crude oil barrel fell 3.04% to US$12.34 and Brent, a reference for the Colombian market and for the Government's fiscal accounts, increased 2.35% to US$20.46.
Source: Portafolio
Date: April 29
Headline: Brent closed again above US$20
Oil showed an uneven performance yesterday. While Brent ended with a rise of 2.61% to a price of US$20.49, the U.S. WTI maintained its poor performance and ended the day with a loss of 3.41% to US$12.34, after dropping more than 25%.
Source: Portafolio
Date: April 29
Headline: The Ministry of Labor estimates that this year at least 70,000 jobs would be lost.
The country is facing one of the most complex episodes in its recent history due to the two external shocks it has had to confront: the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices. This situation will lead to various impacts on the macro and social indicators of the country, but perhaps one that has required the most attention is related to the unemployment rate, which was already high even before the coronavirus. It closed in 2019 at 10.51% and in February it was 12.21%.
Institutional
Source: Portafolio
Date: April 29
Headline: The Government is preparing contracts to carry out ‘fracking’ pilots.’
The draft Agreement, which recently entered the comment phase and is managed by the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH), aims to incorporate into the Contracting Regulations for Exploration and Exploitation of Hydrocarbons the requirements for signing agreements that allow for the implementation of Comprehensive Research Pilot Projects (PPII) on Unconventional Reservoirs (YNC) using hydraulic fracturing technique. (…) It also provides interested and qualified companies the option to transfer the resources invested in the Technical Evaluation and E&P contracts of hydrocarbons for the development of the fracking pilots. The ANH makes it clear that it will monitor and control the activities that the contractor commits to develop, and that this oversight will be carried out directly through visits to the Contracted Area.
Source: Javeriana Estéreo
Date: April 28
Source: caracol.com.co
Date: April 28
Headline: Employees of service stations in Pereira have lost their jobs.
Business owners engaged in fuel marketing are worried because over the last two months they have seen a decline in their sales close to 80% due to the quarantine and mobility restrictions in the department. José Alberto Arias, president of Inzacom (the association of service stations in Risaralda), indicated that the 71 service stations in the Metropolitan Area have been greatly affected, leading their managers to lay off nearly 150 employees. (…) This situation has led them to request the Ministry of Mines to allow them to work with floor prices or reference prices to overcome the economic losses; however, the response has not been positive.
Colombian Association of Oil and Gas