Venezuela has indefinitely postponed a plan to export natural gas to Colombia amid a severe drought that has depleted hydroelectric reservoirs in both countries.
Venezuelan state-owned PdV notified Colombia's energy ministry on 30 December that it needs the gas to supply thermal power generation plants at home.
The company invoked a force majeure clause in a bilateral gas supply contract with Chevron and Colombian state-controlled Ecopetrol, asserting that severe drought conditions caused by El Niño have made it impossible to export any gas at this time. Colombia invoked the same clause in April 2014 to temporarily suspend gas exports to Venezuela because of drought conditions.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had said in August 2015 that PdV would start exporting gas to Colombia on 1 January 2016 from the offshore Perla field, which Spain´s Repsol and Italy´s Eni started up in July 2015. Energy minister and PdV chief executive Eulogio del Pino reiterated in November 2015 that gas exports to Colombia would start in January.
PdV now says it is prepared to start delivering 39mn ft3/d (1.09mn m3/d) of gas to Colombia once reservoirs "return to optimum levels."
This is not the first time that Caracas has postponed the export plan. Colombia and Venezuela inaugurated the 150mn ft3/d Antonio Ricaurte cross-border gas pipeline in 2007. Operator Chevron and its partner Ecopetrol exported fluctuating volumes of gas from mature Guajira province gas fields to Venezuela until June 2015. The pipeline was supposed to have been reversed in 2012, a plan that PdV repeatedly postponed.
Repsol and Eni´s launch of Venezuela´s first offshore gas production from Perla raised expectations that Caracas would finally fulfill its export goal. Although PdV does not participate in Perla, the company is the sole offtaker for the gas.
The 17 trillion ft3 field in the Cardon 4 block in the Gulf of Venezuela is currently producing around 500mn ft3/d, and is expected to ramp up to 1.2bn ft3/d in 2020.
Venezuela´s energy ministry told Argus today that all of the Cardon 4 gas output is currently needed for state-owned utility Corpoelec's thermal power plants.
But industry workers in Venezuela tell Argus that PdV cannot export the gas to Colombia because the cross-border pipeline and pumping installations are not ready for the reverse flow. PdV is responsible for maintaining the pipeline on both sides of the border.
PdV denies any infrastructure bottlenecks.
Although the volume that PdV subsidiary PdV Gas is planning to export to Colombia represents only around 3pc of Colombia´s current domestic supply, Bogota is counting on the Venezuelan gas as part of a wider plan to offset declining domestic gas production.
"Ecopetrol has asked PdV Gas to quickly advise on the new date for starting operations," Colombia´s energy ministry and Ecopetrol said on 1 January.
In the face of limited hydroelectric and gas supplies, most of Colombia´s thermal generators have been using more expensive and less efficient diesel, some of which is imported. A group of generators plans to import LNG through a new regasification terminal near Cartagena starting in 2017.
Venezuela´s considerable gas and infrastructure requirements suggest that exports to Colombia will remain elusive for now. A transmission breakdown in Venezuela on 28 December triggered a blackout in 10 states. As of mid-December 2015, Corpoelec reported that more than half of its thermal power plants and a fifth of its hydropower plants were not operational because of equipment failures and a lack of parts.
