Colombia's Ecopetrol Talking to Very Large Offshore Wind Players

Colombia's majority state-owned energy company Ecopetrol has held talks with big players ahead of a potential bid in an offshore wind auction organized by the country's government, Chief Executive Ricardo Roa said on Wednesday.

Roa was speaking during a call with analysts regarding the company's financial results for the first quarter of 2024, where net profit dropped 29% to 4.01 trillion pesos ($1 billion) on the back of lower sales and a re-evaluation of the country's peso.

Earlier this week the company told Reuters it was conducting technical, economic and legal analyses of potentially participating in an offshore wind auction process to award areas and licenses in the country's Caribbean region.

"We've already made some contact with very large players in the world who have the capacity and knowledge for this type of technology development," Roa said during the call.

Referring to the company's fossil fuels business, Roa said Ecopetrol was considering buying gas assets in Colombia from Canadian operator Canacol amid the growing concern that Colombia will lose gas self-sufficiency in five years.

"This asset will be observed within the internal procedures and protocols for analyzing these investment opportunities within the Ecopetrol group," Roa said, adding that other assets not owned by Canacol could make worthy investments.

Canacol did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last year, Ecopetrol said it was considering importing gas from Venezuela, which Minister of Mines and Energy Andres Camacho supported as a low-cost solution to Colombia's looming gas problems.

Ecopetrol continues to hold conversations with the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regarding sanctions and restrictions imposed on the Venezuelan government and the country's state-owned energy giant PDVSA, Roa added.

(Reuters - Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Josie Kao)