The company recorded profits of $4.01 billion in the first quarter of this year, compared to the $5.66 generated in the same period of 2023.
The president of Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa, delivered Ecopetrol’s operating results for the first quarter of 2024.
The oil company reported $4.01 billion in profits for this quarter compared to the $5.66 billion reported in the first quarter of last year, representing a 29.1% drop in profits.
According to the company’s report, in the first quarter of this year there was an increase in the production of barrels of oil reaching 741,000 barrels of oil per day, 22,000 more daily than reported in the same period last year.
Among the main effects on the drop in profits, according to Ecopetrol, are the drop in the price of the dollar, the effects of inflation, and the El Niño phenomenon that impacts the company’s income, costs and expenses.
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The impact of the price of the dollar explains part of that fall. Well, in the first quarter there was a representative market rate (TRM) of $4,760, while the average TRM for the first three months of 2024 was $3,915.
The company made transfers to the Nation in the order of $7.2 billion. Likewise, one of the novelties is that there was a reduction in the debt accumulated in the Fuel Price Stabilization Fund, Fepc, which went from $7.9 billion in the first three months of 2023, to $2.2 billion for the same period of 2024.
Sales drops
According to the state oil company’s report, sales revenue fell by 19.4% for the first quarter of this year, which is equivalent to a variation of $7.6 billion. In total, Ecopetrol reported sales of $31.3 billion.
The main causes of this drop in sales were the negative effect of a lower exchange rate in the dollar price (- $4.9 billion).
According to Ecopetrol, another indicator that had an impact was a lower sales volume (- $1.6 billion) due to lower availability of local crude oil for export “given the decrease in the level of international purchases and destination of national crude oil for higher loads in the refineries.” In addition, The decrease in national demand for gasoline also had an influence.
This is how it went at the Barrancabermeja refinery
According to the executive and operational vice president, Alberto Consuegra, the results for the Barrancabermeja refinery were positive for the first three months of this year.
“The Barrancabermeja refinery contributes the group’s results: they are $517 billion in the quarter. In addition to that, an average load of 225 thousand barrels per day, an availability of 96%, products delivered to the market in the order of 300 thousand barrels per day, are quite positive results from the Barrancabermeja refinery,” summarized the Ecopetrol executive. .
According to the official report, that refinery had a load of 225 thousand barrels per day during this period of 2024, which means an increase of 1.1% compared to the load levels of the same period last year.
One of the reasons for this growth of the oil port refinery is the increase in operational availability, which was at 96.2% during these first three months of 2024.
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