Ecopetrol S.A. (NYSE:EC) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Hernan Goicochea: Yes. Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you so much for taking my questions, So I wanted to follow up a little bit on the financing options that is related to the refinancing of the loan that was used for the ISA acquisition. You mentioned, that they will be looking at other options. And I remember earlier, this year that there was a mention that there was a possible sustainable bond sale, either later this year at the end of this year, is there still the possibility of going to the international markets to add an option to finance for the — to pay off the loan.

Jaime Caballero: Hi, Hernan, how are you? This is, Jaime. Yes. So with regards to refinancing, I think there’s two different buckets to speak about. The first one is, the ISA acquisition loan in and by itself and then there’s like everything else, which is basically some maturities that we have at the back end of 2023. With regards to the ISA acquisition loan, which was a loan of about $3.7 billion, $3.2 billion of that has already been refinanced to — on one end, a bond that we issued late last year and more recently we used the, a committed line that we had for $1.2 billion. So that has already been refinanced and there’s a balance if you will, a remaining balance of $450 million $470 million to go which we’re working on.

With regards to 2023 maturities, when you add this — the balance of ISA $470 million plus other maturities that we had at the back end of next year, we have a total balance of about $3.5 billion. And we are working with the financial system on different avenues to refinance that. Our preference at this stage is through bank loans, which we are working on. These are bank loans with a variety of time horizons. We believe that they actually give us some pretty competitive cost of debt associated to them, with some very interesting extensions in terms of time horizons which are linked to our business plan. That is our preference, I’d say. There are other options. Bonds are always an option, right? Ecopetrol has a long-standing presence in the bond market and we are cognizant of that.

And we keep that option as a possibility. I think as we monitor the credit markets at this stage and circumstances around Colombia and international macroeconomic factors, we continue to review that. I would say, that’s a secondary option at this stage, but it’s certainly something that we do not rule out at any moment in time. Thank you.

Hernan Goicochea: Thanks, Jaime

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Oriana Cobalt from Balance . Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst: Afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. This is Soriana Cobalt with Balance . I had one follow-up with regards to the FEPC receivable. Just – I understand that you’re in conversations on what would be the necessary adjustments for next year to prevent the further acceleration. But if you have any ballpark estimates or view on where do you see the needed adjustments in gasoline and diesel prices as to prevent an accelerated accumulation of the receivable? That would be the first question. And the second question would be more on the CapEx side. Looking at your CapEx figures for the quarter, if you can further elaborate on the inflationary pressures that account for the increase in USD terms specifically for the exploration CapEx, which I noticed that you did the same number of exploration wells but the figure was substantially above quarter-over-quarter and same goes for midstream business? Thank you.

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