Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp., Toronto, received a license required to inject an additional 1 million b/d of water into giant Rubiales oil field in Colombia's Llanos basin and obtained $150 million in financing from World Bank’s International Finance Corp.
The added water injection will allow the company to hike field output to 220,000 b/d by yearend from 210,159 b/d in the first quarter. The needed water injection facilities have been built.
Pacific Rubiales, operator of Rubiales and Quifa fields with 42% working interest, also will use an irrigation project to dispose of the increasing volumes of water produced from the two fields. Water produced from the existing separation process will be treated through reverse osmosis facilities and used for agroforestry as opposed to being reinjected.
The irrigation project is under construction and expected to start up late in this year’s fourth quarter. It will contribute to the company’s cash flow, reducing the cost of handling incremental produced water from the fields.
Pacific Rubiales noted that the $150 million represents the first IFC equity investment in an infrastructure project in Colombia and the largest greenfield equity investment by IFC globally. The investment “confirms the vision and strategic importance of Pacific Infrastructure’s Puerto Bahia import-export terminal and the OLECAR pipeline projects which are currently under way.”
IFC will obtain a 27.2% equity interest in Pacific Infrastructure, reducing Pacific Rubiales’ 56.9% interest to 41.4%.