Dollar bonds of Ecopetrol, Colombia’s largest and primary petroleum company fell by as much a 3%. This comes after its new CEO Ricardo Roa indicated that he will not ask the government to push for new oil exploration contracts. The Colombian government had pledged to ban new drilling contracts by not issuing any new exploration licenses in an effort to to phase out oil and coal. However, this policy has hurt existing drillers. Ecopetrol’s CEO said they will focus on its existing contracts and on increasing the nation’s oil and gas reserves after he also said that searching more fossil fuels is not a responsible act from an environmental standpoint.
Ecopetrol’s shares are down 18% this week on the back of the above developments. Its 6.875% 2030s were down 2.6 points to 88.8 cents on the dollar, yielding 9.1%.
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