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Canadian company to reduce Colombia’s carbon footprint by powering oil field with solar
By Shervin Belgrave
Kaieteur News – Frontera Energy, a Canadian oil Company, presently conducting oil exploration activities in Guyana with its joint venture partner, CGX Energy Inc., is obligated to reduce its carbon emission in Colombia, a country where it has assets.
In order to meet its social responsibility the company has chosen to power one of its Colombian oil fields entirely by solar.
The Canadian Company has majority interest in Guyana’s Corentyne Oil block and was invited to give an update on its well drilling campaign in the country at the Guyana International Energy Conference and Expo, 2023.
During the presentation, its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Orlando Cabrales told the conference, “In the areas where we operate in Colombia, we have the social responsibility to have the communities less dependent on oil.”
The company has been doing this by investing in a number sustainable energy projects to keep its operations clean and assist in reducing Colombia’s carbon emissions.
“Firstly, I don’t know if you remember President Duque [Ivan Duque, former Colombian President] showing a picture yesterday of an oil field and a solar farm, as we speak, we are building a solar far in Colombia which is 10 megawatts, which will satisfy the energy needs of one of our fields far away from the national grid so that is one of the investments that we are doing this year. As we speak, that will help us to reduce the carbon foot print of the company”, the Frontera CEO said.
CEO of Frontera Energy, Orlando Cabrales
Ivan Duque, Former Colombian President was one of the guest speakers at the conference and he spoke of the steps Colombia has taken to maintain a balance between developing its oil and gas resources and reducing its carbon emissions.
“Is oil going to come to an end? And I think the response to this is ‘no’; it is not going to come to an end. But that doesn’t mean that we are going to deny that we need to continue advancing in reducing emissions because that is a compromise for the world and our countries need to take this decision,” Duque said.
However, in order to maintain the balance between developing a country’s oil and gas sector for the benefit the people and reducing the carbon output to save the planet from a major climate crisis, Duque opined, “It also requires that we understand the complexity of new forms of energy, the reliability the frequency, the supply, the uncertainties, things that we regularly see when it comes to solar and wind but we have to advance in those types of transitions.”
The former Colombian president even suggested to Guyana that it can invest in solar to assist reducing its Carbon emissions while still developing its oil and gas sector.
Former Colombian President, Ivan Duque speaking at the second annual International Energy conference held at the Marriott Hotel, Guyana.
“You (Guyana) have lands to produce with solar panels. Lands that can be above 100 megawatts connecting to the grid and start transforming the composition of the grid you may think that reliability is a question mark but you can also advance on storage but you need to start accelerating that change”, Duque told the energy conference.
To support his theory the former Colombian president shared Colombia’s success story in reducing its Carbon Emissions by not only investing solar and even having its national oil company, Ecopetrol power its operation at the country’s “San Francisco oil camp” with solar energy.
“The Colombian case that I want to demonstrate is that things are possible… You have one of the most important oil fields in our country where more than 20 percent of the oil production takes place but that same oil field is one of the largest auto consuming sites with non-conventional renewable energies” Duque said while adding that in 2018 Colombia had only 28 megawatts of “installed capacity in non-conventional renewable energy but has since upgraded that amount to 2800 megawatts within four years.
The transition has since placed Colombia among the countries with the cleanest energy mix in the world.
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