Jaime Caballero Uribe
Analyst · Itau BBA, Argentina
Hi, Andres. Hola. So on Vasconia, so the first thing that I would say is that we were also surprised with what is happening in Vasconia. This is completely unprecedented. it is completely unexpected. Right? And we need to start from there. Right? it is it is a very atypical market situation that we have never seen before. It does not affect just your part. It affects all the Colombian operators that use the Vasconia reference. And it is not just affecting Vasconia. it is affecting basically all the heavy oil crudes that go to the Gulf Of Mexico refineries, you know, essentially. So this is a, if you will, an industry issue which actually has knock on effects on Medanito, but it is primarily right now about Colombian crude that is going to Gulf Of Mexico, and that is the connection with Vasconia. So, basically, what is what is happening, it is it is multiple factors, but I would summarize it around 3 things. You know? Basically, with the with the sustained high prices that we have seen over this year, it provides an incentive to a otherwise not profitable heavy oil to be produced. So, basically, we are getting. We are getting new supply from Canada from Mexico into the Gulf Of Mexico. Which is in turn depreciating, if you will, or taking off competitiveness of Colombian crude. that is 1 of the factors. The second factor is that freight cost have gone significantly high, you know, across the Caribbean. And, actually, it is a worldwide phenomenon, associated to that or most disruption, what is going on in The Gulf. Basically, as the conflict has sustained, you know, for now more than 6 months, it is all reflected in freight costs, and those freight costs are affecting the Vasconia differential and the transport cost associated to that group. So that is the second important component, I would say, Now when you think about is this structural or temporary our view is this is not structural. This is linked to the current oil market conditions. And disruptions. And to the extent that those geopolitical situations unwind this is gonna go back. This is gonna go back to normal because the fundamentals are still there. The crude has not lost its quality. The crude has not lost its appeal for the Gulf Of Mexico refineries, and so that should normalize. The question is, how long is it gonna take? And we do not know. We do not know how long is it gonna take. So what are we doing about it? We are doing 2 or 3 things. The first thing is we are actually optimizing our hedging positions. You know? And there is been a number of questions around hedging. We have left space within our hedging policy to do a specific you know, like, if you will, surgical interventions in our hedging position, and we are doing that in the fourth quarter. Basically, what we have done is we. We have taken part of the volume that we have hedged in 4Q and we released ceilings that we had associated to that, through a rollover mechanism, basically, Basically, what we are doing is we are taking the existing positions into the future at better pricing conditions because the futures curve has improved. And we are giving ourselves more room to capture A higher pricing in 4 q. That should to a large extent, offset what is going on with Vasconia, provided that stays within reasonable levels. And we are going to see how that evolves over the next 45 days. that is been 1 intervention. The other intervention that we are doing is revisiting our commercial strategy along with other operators that you saw us going to reference. You know, we are we are not alone. If you look at basically all the Colombian operators used to either directly or indirectly Tavasconia referenced, and we are in discussions with them around how to navigate this situation in terms of whether there is possibility of planning crew together, aggregating supply so we get better conditions and things like that. And more technical things such as working with flats, in terms of ensuring that the Vasconia marker is adequately priced, or you know, if there are opportunities around that. So those are the sort of things that we are doing right now, which should help us mitigate to some degree what is going on in the broader market. Thanks. Thank you, Jaime, and thanks, Andres, for the question.