Bogotá, December 19, 2019
Regarding the information published in the media about a decision by the State Council, Drummond makes the following clarifications:
- Drummond reiterates that it has not carried out “fracking” activities or hydraulic fracturing in horizontal wells. The project that Drummond has developed for the Caporo field in the Contract of La Loma with the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH in Spanish), with an approved environmental license, consists of exploiting coal-bed-methane gas reservoirs with a traditional hydraulic stimulation technique in vertical wells, similar to that used in the country for more than 50 years.
- In 2012 it was found that in the Loma contract there is also another type of unconventional reservoir (shale type), and due to this Drummond requested the ANH to sign an additional contract to proceed to explore them. That Additional Contract of La Loma was signed in December 2016.
- The National Hydrocarbons Agency suspended that Additional Contract of La Loma in April 27, 2018. Drummond has not operated there since that suspension.
- The Committee of Experts convened by the National Government to study this technique and make recommendations, stated about the coal-bed-methane gas reservoirs (1):
“The extraction of hydrocarbons from these types of reservoirs involves traditional (or conventional) hydraulic fracturing, which has been used by the industry for more than half a century and it is not the one that has generated the controversy”.
Because of all this, Drummond submitted these and other legal and technical arguments to the State Council.
[1] Report on environmental (biotic, physical and social) and economic effects of hydrocarbon exploration in areas with possible deployment of hydraulic rock fracturing techniques using horizontal drilling,” published on April 5, 2019.