Following the State Council decision that denied Ecopetrol's request to lift the precautionary measure that prevented the exploration and exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons through the horizontal drilling and hydraulic rock fractures technique (better known as “fracking”) in Colombia, measure that was imposed in November 2018, Jeanette Bermúdez, president of the State Council, clarified that this decision does not restrict the research pilots projects proposed by the Expert Commission convoked by the Government.
It is worth mentioning, that during the first semester of 2019 the Independent Interdisciplinary Expert Commission commissioned by the National Government concluded that in Colombia it is possible to carry out Comprehensive Research Pilot Projects (“PPII” from its acronyms in Spanish) with fracking, provided that some requirements are met. In that sense, the Expert Commission published the full report, which contains the main conclusions and recommendations that the National Government must consider when implementing PPII related to unconventional deposits.
Therefore, in compliance with the article 8 of the Colombian Administrative Procedure Code authorities must to maintain available to all interested parties the complete and updated information, among others, of the specific regulatory projects and the information used to build them, in order to receive opinions, suggestions or alternative proposals, the Ministry of Mines and Energy (“MME”) published on December 26, 2019 the Draft Decree “By which the guidelines for the exploration activities in PPII on unconventional hydrocarbon in a multi-stage horizontal drilling and hydraulic rock fractures technique are established.”
The MME will receive the observations, comments and proposals thereof in the following email pciudadana@minenergia.gov.co.
It is important to consider that such observations, comments and proposals shall be submitted in the editable form for the reception of comments, which is available on the MME website, where the draft decree is also published.
The Draft Decree and other information about it, can be found in the following link:
https://www.minenergia.gov.co/foros?idForo=24162581
All observations, comments and proposals must be sent no later than Monday, January 20, 2020.