As part of the strategy to intensify the search for hydrocarbons, Ecopetrol and BHP signed the Fuerte Norte and Fuerte Sur exploration contracts with the National Hydrocarbon Agency, ANH, which allows the company to participate in exploration of the totality of the Colombian Caribbean offshore.

The Fuerte Norte and Fuerte Sur, at the Sinú Marino basin, are the result of the TEA (technical evaluation agreement) signed by BHP in 2005 with the ANH and of the evaluation of exploration potential which gave way to the signing of the exploration association contracts with Ecopetrol.

The exploration blocks total an area of 950,000 hectares, in which an Ecopetrol participates with 25 percent and BHP with the remaining 75 percent. With these two contracts, Ecopetrol completes a total of 9 contracts signed with the National Hydrocarbon Agency.

BHP?s commitment, as operator, and Ecopetrol's with its percentage participation for the first 18 months in each contract, is to acquire 2000 kilometers of 2D seismic data, with investments hovering around US $3 million each.

These commitments are in addition to Carioca, a TEA recently signed by Ecopetrol with the ANH. Technical evaluation at Baja Guajira.
Carioca, seeks to evaluate the general behavior of onshore units at Baja Guajira Basin, to extend deformations generated by the Oca fault movement, and the structural traps with the potential of storing hydrocarbons acquired.

This 100% Ecopetrol TEA has a ten-month duration, time during which experts can re-process and interpret 300 kilometers of 2D seismic data, and perform all evaluation necessary to allow them to determine the prospectivity for the signing of a possible association contract with the ANH.

The Carioca area covers 197,369 hectares that added to the other four technical evaluation contracts in which Ecopetrol participates, rises to 1 million 270 hectares.