BOGOTA – Colombia’s oil output came in at an average of 670,000 barrels per day in 2009, the highest total in a decade, business daily La Republica said Friday.

The paper quoted National Hydrocarbons Agency director Armando Zamora as saying that the oil industry consolidated the important strides made in 2008.

“Over the past two years, (the downward trend in output from 2000-2007) was reversed and (production) reached the levels at the beginning of the decade,” he said.

Zamora said some of the factors contributing to the higher output were the use of new technologies, new discoveries amounting to close to 80,000 bpd, high prices and the restructuring of state-owned Ecopetrol.

Production figures for December, when output climbed to as high as 734,000 barrels per day, also helped boost the yearly total.

Alejandro Martinez, president of the Colombian Oil Association, a group comprising private oil and gas companies in the Andean nation, told the same daily that the excellent results in 2009 were buoyed by high crude prices.

“Another factor that played in (companies’) favor was the government’s oil policy, which allowed numerous contracts to be renewed and mature fields to continue to be developed,” he said.

Average oil production in 2008 totaled 588,000 barrels per day, up from 531,000 bpd the previous year. EFE