Colombia’s Ecopetrol Jumps to Top Place in LatAm
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Colombian national oil company Ecopetrol has overtaken Brazil’s Petrobras as Latin America’s most valuable company per market capitalization, report Dow Jones and Financial Times’ Beyondbrics blog. Analysts say a sliding real versus a climbing peso, as well as investor support of the Colombian government’s hands-off approach to management of Ecopetrol, led to the appreciation. The FT also notes that one of the reasons behind Colombia’s recent oil-industry success has been the acquisition of talent from neighboring Venezuela’s PDVSA:
| “Interestingly, one of the things that has helped the Colombian oil industry move on in leaps and bounds is that it has been able to hire top-flight talent away from PDVSA, the Venezuelan national oil company with huge reserves and experience, currently wasting away under the burden of ever greater state interference.” |