Increased state intervention coupled with greater risk from frontier areas led to low turnout for oil and gas licensing rounds in Bolivia and Ecuador despite a slew of promotion activities including international road shows.
The start of the year saw Bolivia's state hydrocarbon firm YPFB award exploration areas offered under the service contract model to BG and Petrobras, the only bidders and companies that already operate in this market.
Five groups tabled four bids for Ecuador's Suroriente round although only Belorusneft is a newcomer to the country, after a world tour that included stops in Beijing, Bogotá, Houston, Indonesia, New York, Paris and Singapore. Thirteen blocks were offered.
Bolivia and Ecuador along with Venezuela rank as the least attractive jurisdictions in The Fraser Institute's Global Petroleum Survey 2013.
While in Peru, considered a bastion of private sector promotion, socio-environmental scrutiny in particular uncertainties related to the indigenous prior consultation law dampened interest in state hydrocarbons promotion agency Perupetro call for nine offshore blocks. The process was placed on standby.
And Colombia, another country courted by industry players but challenged by strikes and security issues, pre-launched the 2014 round to expand the production horizon. Mines and energy minister Amylkar Acosta cataloged the reserves situation as "very precarious."
The Andean region's power transport shortfall is another area authorities and stakeholders looked to address in 2013 due to increasing demand and as new generation capacity comes online.
Maximum demand peaked at a record 1,128MW in January in Bolivia where state power company Ende advanced development of lines Cochabamba-La Paz and Chaco-Tarija.
Colombia's mining and energy planning unit UPME released its 2013-26 reference transmission expansion plan which recommends investment of US$2bn to buttress the transmission network.
To advance on this front, UPME announced plans to woo investors for 13 high-voltage transmission projects and minister Acosta Medina highlighted an 82bn-peso (US$42.5mn) project to interconnect eastern Vichada department on the border with Venezuela.
A report from Ecuador's wholesale power market administrator Cenace pointed to the risk of total or partial collapse of the national interconnected system (SNI) due to contingencies on the main transmission link from increased hydro output.
Indeed, state power holding company Celec awarded Harbin Electric International a US$599mn contract to connect hydros Coca Codo (1.5GW) and Sopladora (487MW) to the SNI.
For its part, Ecuador's power and renewable energy ministry and Peru's energy and mines ministry signed an agreement to develop a 500kV transmission line.
Transmission in Peru continued exponential growth led by projects Friaspata-Mollepata, Machupicchu-Quencoro-Onocora-Tintaya, Mantaro-Marcona-Socabaya-Montalvo, Moyobamba-Iquitos, Tingo María-Vizcarra-Conococha and Trujillo-Chiclayo.
And Paraguay inaugurated the 500kV Itaipú-Villa Hayes transmission project while Venezuela declared a state of emergency for the power sector due to alleged sabotage of infrastructure, in particular transmission, by opposition. The measure jump started a series of works to safeguard and overhaul lines and substations among other installations.
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