The appointment of Ricardo Roa Barragán as president of Ecopetrol was not a surprise. Months before it was known that Felipe Bayón was going to leave the oil company, it was rumored that Roa would keep this position, since he is a man close to President Gustavo Petro and was his campaign manager.
However, once it became known, on January 26, that Bayón’s resignation had been agreed with the company’s board of directors, the headhunting firm Heidrick & Struggles began a process to find his successor.
(Also read: In the midst of SIC investigations of Ecopetrol, Bayón says goodbye with a record balance)
The name of Ricardo Roa Barragán, a mechanical engineer from the National University, came from a list of 65 people that began to be refined after evaluating profiles and conducting interviews. There were resumes of internal and external Ecopetrol personnel, as well as nationals and foreigners.
For a second stage, the list was reduced to six candidates and then there were only three. Their profiles were raised for the consideration of the board, which announced its final decision last Tuesday night.
Ricardo Roa, with more than 30 years of experience in the energy sector, He must assume his new position no later than April 30 and the reactions to his appointment in the most important company in Colombia did not wait.
(You may also be interested in: Ricardo Roa: who is the man close to Petro who comes to preside over Ecopetrol?)
Ricardo Roa Barragán, new president of Ecopetrol.
Juan Manuel Vargas. TIME
On her Twitter account, Irene Vélez, Minister of Mines and Energy, stated that, with this change, Ecopetrol will take on the opportunity to improve the efficiency of its hydrocarbon processes.
“It will also be able to become a clean energy company, a pioneer of the transition in Colombia and the continent. Developments in energy technologies with hydrogen, geothermal energy, and offshore wind power will allow the most important company in the country to be strengthened,” he added.
Entrepreneurs from the sector, represented by the Colombian Chamber of Oil, Gas and Energy Goods and Services (Campetrol), wished Roa Barragán success in his management.
They indicated that from this position «it assumes the important challenge and responsibility of guaranteeing the growth of the oil industry and the energy security of the country», in response to which, they expressed their willingness to continue working together.
The company’s own workers, represented in the Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) wrote on their Twitter account that they are happy about this election and are willing to work with Roa and the new board to face «great challenges and enormous opportunities.»
(In addition: Oil production fell 2.15% in February due to blockades in Meta and Arauca)
In addition, they reiterated that the company must maintain energy security and economic stability by exploring and producing hydrocarbons, but at the same time it has to accelerate and deepen the energy transition.
In turn, Roa Barragán himself published a brief letter on that same social network thanking the members of the oil company’s board of directors for the vote of confidence placed in him, and he promised to lead «with all the professional rigor, from the this great company, a just and sustainable energy transition for the benefit of the entire country”.
And he said that under his leadership «Ecopetrol will guarantee security and energy equity in Colombia.»
Ecopetrol obtained historic profits last year in the order of 33.4 trillion pesos.
The challenges
Although Ricardo Roa will firmly take the reins of oil at the end of April, important tasks and challenges already await him that will not be easy to meet, especially if the record figures left by his predecessor are taken into account. Felipe Bayon, and the current circumstances of the local and international economy.
Ecopetrol obtained historic profits last year in the order of 33.4 trillion pesos.
But beyond ensuring that this rate of profit can be maintained, and moving forward with the negotiation of the list of demands presented by the USO, the company’s workers’ union, has other far-reaching challenges.
One of those is, precisely, that the figures are maintained, among these good ones, the production of hydrocarbons because this is the company’s box and the one that allows to pay dividends, taxes and royalties.
However, the spearhead is for Ecopetrol to continue advancing in the energy transition, while protecting its traditional business so that Colombians can have gasoline, diesel, jet and petrochemicals, and so that these businesses, which are increasingly they are decarbonizing, allowing to finance the transition.
Additionally, it will have to speed up natural gas discoveries offshore and in the Piedmont, seek efficiencies between ISA and Ecopetrol, secure crude oil to load refineries and speed up the transition.
On this last front, it is important that the additional solar parks that are under development come into operation as planned, that the wind measurements can make wind projects and that the geothermal project, which begins to be implemented towards the middle of the year in Campo Apiay, becomes a reality.
In hydrogen, the goal of ecopetrol is to go from 130,000 to one million tons of production for the local and international market.
Another important point is the issue of the possible purchase of natural gas from Venezuela, which was ruled out during Felipe Bayón’s term. However, the new president and the board of directors must analyze this alternative very carefully, even more so when today there are great discoveries in the Colombian Caribbean and in Casanare.