Colombia extends ceasefire, restarts pipeline

OREANDA-NEWS. October 17, 2016. Colombia's government and Farc rebels extended a bilateral ceasefire by two months as peace re-negotiations get underway.

Oil and gas companies operating in Colombia are hoping for increased security tied to the rebel group?s demobilization under the terms of a peace deal that was unexpectedly rejected by a narrow majority of voters in a 2 October plebiscite.

President Juan Manuel Santos yesterday said the bilateral ceasefire would be extended to 31 December 2016 after last week setting a 31 October expiry.

"Let this be clear: this isn't an ultimatum or a deadline, but I hope that this whole process of finding a new accord ends well before then because as a student told me today, ‘time conspires against peace and life'", said Santos.

The ceasefire extension follows the government?s announcement that it will open formal talks with the smaller and ideologically more radical ELN rebel group in Quito, Ecuador on 27 October.

ELN is planning to release its final hostages ahead of the start date, according to government peace negotiator Frank Pearl.

ELN is still actively carrying out offensives. The group's Jose Maria Becerra front clashed with Colombian police on 12 October in Bolivar municipality, Cauca province, a military source told Argus.

ELN and Farc have historically menaced oil and gas companies during five decades of armed conflict with the state by kidnapping workers and bombing infrastructure, especially crude pipelines.

Attacks usually attributed to ELN have put state-controlled Ecopetrol's 220,000 b/d Ca?o Limon-Cove?as pipeline out of service for at least 79 days in the year to date, according to military and Ecopetrol statistics obtained by Argus.

Last year, the Ca?o Limon-Cove?as line was out of service for around 86 days.

US Occidental, Ecopetrol and other Llanos basin producers depend on the line to transport crude to Cove?as port on the Caribbean coast.

Farc and ELN presence often complicates infrastructure repairs in places such as southwestern Putumayo and Nari?o provinces, where the 85,000 b/d Transandino pipeline transports crude to Tumaco port on the Pacific coast.

Ecopetrol restarted the Transandino on 12 October following around 57 days of repairs and maintenance. The shutdown was triggered by a rupture caused by a mid-August landslide.

Producers such as Canadian independent Gran Tierra Energy that depend on the Transandino routinely switch over to trucking crude to the country's northern pipeline network or through Ecuador.