Colombian Official Confirms Oxy Land Swap

Colombia’s minister of mines and energy, Orlando Cabrales, told a news conference in Bogota that Occidental Petroleum Corp. has agreed to relinquish the bulk of its lands in the ancestral territory of the 5,000-member U’wa tribe, which had threatened mass suicide if Oxy drilled for oil. Los Angeles-based Oxy will be allowed to exchange the drilling rights on the disputed land for another parcel, he said. Cabrales did not specify what Occidental would relinquish and what it would receive in return. Occidental declined to comment. Cabrales said Oxy is one of four companies that have offered to give up rights to existing fields in exchange for contracts on other potential fields that carry a more favorable profit-sharing arrangement with the state oil company, Empresa Colombiana de Petroleos. Colombia is changing the way it allocates profit payments to its foreign partners in order to attract more foreign oil companies to the country.