RIO DE JANEIRO—Colombia’s state-run oil company Ecopetrol wants to position itself as the preferred heavy crude supplier in Latin America.

To achieve this goal, according to Pedro Manrique, vice president of commerce and marketing for Ecopetrol, the oil company is focusing on quality, stability and timely deliveries for potential markets in North America and Asia.

“The Gulf of Mexico has been the main destination of our crude and products in recent years. However, we have been increasing our exports to the other coasts of that country and diversifying sales to other destinations in the world,” Manrique said during the Argus Rio Crude Conference last week. “Sales of crude oil and products to Asia, for example, increased 16% in the first quarter.”

According to Ecopetrol, the fourth largest oil company in Latin America, oil exports to the United States increased by almost 25% in first-quarter 2019 due to an increase in the company’s production.

Output in the first quarter reached 728,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The results reflect positive responses from reservoirs to primary and secondary recovery, development of gas markets and effective execution of the investment plan, the company said.

Manrique also said Ecopetrol is seeing good opportunities for its crude oil exports to the U.S. because of the U.S. sanctions against Venezuela. “Now that sanctions came to play last January, we see that many of those facilities that used to import Venezuelan crude oil are now asking for oil and we are working to add more amount of heavy crude export to this traditional market.” he said.

Colombia, which is among the top 10 suppliers of crude to the United States, sent an additional 195,600 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) to U.S. market in first-quarter 2019.

The largest volumes of crude oil were exported to the U.S. Gulf Coast, where 143,700 bbl/d were shipped, up 3.4% compared to the same period in 2018. But product sales saw the largest increase on the west coast of the United States, from 3,300 bbl/d to 6,700 bbl/d, which represented an increase of 103%, according to the company data.

Manrique mentioned China as another important market for the company’s crude oil as main refinery systems in China also have used crude oil from Venezuelan, which is paralyzed by its current political problems. “This is a good opportunity for us to produce more [oil]. We see China as one of our main market and the crude oil that we export to the U.S. also matches China’s refineries.”

Exploration Strategy

The executive also presented Ecopetrol’s 2019 exploration strategy, which includes drilling wells close to existing infrastructure, establishing signing contracts for E&P activities in the COL-5 Block (100% Ecopetrol) and Gua Off 1 Block (50% Repsol operator, 50% Ecopetrol), which spans 988,000 acres nearly 50 miles offshore La Guajira Department, on the border with Venezuela.

Acquired in March, COL-5 is the first offshore E&P contract under a newly revised contract model. The block is located in the Caribbean Sea and is adjacent to U.S. independent Anadarko Petroleum’s Purple Angel gas find. “Ecopetrol will invest more than $250 million in this offshore project,” Luis Miguel Morelli, head of the National Hydrocarbons Agency, said in a statement.

The company’s strategy also establishes a data room for Purple Angel, Fuerte Sur and COL-5 to attract strategic partners.

Manrique also said Ecopetrol works to increase its internalization process, with the acquisition of oil fields offshore Brazil. In 2018, Ecopetrol became the first company in Latin America to join as a partner in the Brazilian presalt.

In September, the Colombian oil company joined, with a 20% stake, a consortium with BP as operator (50%) and China’s CNOOC (30%), acquiring the Pau-Brasil presalt block in the Santos Basin. Also, in December, Ecopetrol announced an agreement with Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron that allows it to expand its participation in Brazil’s presalt. The agreement allows Ecopetrol to have a 10% stake in the Saturn Block, also in the Santos Basin.

“We are going to keep looking at opportunities in Brazil,” Manrique said. “Ecopetrol is determined to grow in Brazil.”

Besides these two presalt blocks, Ecopetrol has three other blocks in Brazil in the Santos, Foz de Amazonas, Potiguar and Ceará basins.