Deep and diverse experience

Colombia

Rubén Arismendy and Edgar Chajid Kairuz, managing partners and co-founders at Neoil Energy, talk to The Energy Year about the role the company is playing in Colombia’s energy transition and how new technologies and partnerships are enhancing its services. Neoil Energy specialises in geosciences, engineering and remote sensing, applied to the oil and gas, mining, energy transition and the infrastructure sector.

What role is Neoil playing in Colombia’s energy transition?
Rubén ARISMENDY: The energy industry is undergoing a significant transformation as we transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. However, we recognise that these two forms of energy must coexist for the foreseeable future. At Neoil, we’re actively contributing to this transition by leveraging our extensive knowledge and experience in the hydrocarbons industry.
Our company has access to a wealth of geological and geophysical data from sedimentary basins, accumulated over years of exploration and production in the oil and gas sector. We’re now applying this valuable information to emerging fields, such as CO2 sequestration, white hydrogen exploration and geothermal energy.
It’s important to note that we’re not starting from scratch in these new areas. Instead, we’re adapting and extending our existing expertise to meet the challenges of the energy transition.
For example, we’re currently engaged in a postdoctoral project with the Ministry of Science focused on CO2 sequestration in the Sinú-San Jacinto Basin. Over the next two years, we’ll be evaluating the basin’s petrophysical properties and storage capacity. This project exemplifies how we’re using our hydrocarbons industry knowledge to address climate change challenges.

What challenges and opportunities do you identify in the energy transition, particularly for Colombia?
Edgar Chajid KAIRUZ: We recognise that the energy transition is an inevitable and necessary process, but we also understand that it comes with significant challenges, especially for a country such as Colombia. One of the major hurdles we see is striking the right balance between moving towards cleaner energy sources and maintaining energy security.
It’s crucial that we approach this transition thoughtfully and avoid falling into purely idealistic or environmentalist arguments that might lead to an overly aggressive, poorly planned transition.
This transition must be accompanied by a diversification of the energy matrix. We can’t simply discard energy sources such as hydrocarbons overnight. They will continue to play a role, albeit a different one, in our energy future.
A significant consideration for Colombia is the economic aspect of this transition. As a developing country, we must ensure that the shift to new energy sources doesn’t result in prohibitively expensive energy for our citizens. Therefore, a key challenge – and opportunity – is to develop clean energy solutions that are also affordable and accessible to the general population.
We see great potential in areas such as geothermal energy, CO2 sequestration and white hydrogen production. However, it’s important to note that these technologies are still in development in Colombia.

How are you incorporating new technologies and partnerships to enhance your services?
RA: At Neoil, we’re constantly evolving our technological capabilities to stay at the forefront of the industry. The future of energy exploration and production lies in the integration of traditional geological knowledge with cutting-edge data analysis techniques. To this end, we’ve recently formed a strategic partnership with EAFIT University.
Through this collaboration, we’re working to apply AI, data analysis and machine learning to our subsurface models. This isn’t just about using new tools; it’s about fundamentally changing how we approach geological and geophysical data analysis.
We’re developing new methodologies that can be applied across various aspects of our work, whether for traditional hydrocarbons exploration and production, CO2 capture, white hydrogen exploration or geothermal energy.
This partnership has led to the development of a new service line we call Neoil Smart Solutions. This innovative offering focuses on prediction, improvement and the optimisation of operations, production and investment decisions. By leveraging AI and machine learning, we’re able to extract more value from data, identify patterns that might be missed by traditional analysis methods and provide our clients with more accurate and insightful recommendations.
We’ve also been expanding our capabilities in remote sensing, particularly through the use of InSAR [interferometric synthetic aperture radar]. This advanced satellite-based technique allows us to detect and measure millimetre-scale ground deformations over large areas. We’ve been using this technology for about five years now, and it’s proving invaluable for a range of applications.

What sets Neoil apart from other companies in the industry, especially larger multinational firms?
ECK: As a boutique consulting firm, our deep and diverse experience across the entire hydrocarbons industry value chain is a key differentiator. Our team members have worked as operators and consultants and in various roles within exploration and production. This breadth of experience gives us a comprehensive understanding of our clients’ needs from multiple perspectives.
We pride ourselves on providing highly personalised, flexible services tailored to each client’s specific requirements. Unlike larger firms that might have more rigid service offerings, we’re willing and able to go the extra mile for our clients. We understand that every project is unique, and we adapt our approach accordingly.
Another key differentiator is our status as one of the few resource and reserves certifiers of Latin American origin, if not the only one. This gives us a unique position in the market, especially when it comes to understanding the geological and regulatory context of Latin American countries.
We also bring a distinct perspective to our work. Having been on the operator’s side ourselves, we understand first-hand what our clients need and how they want results delivered. This insight allows us to approach projects with a practical, results-oriented mindset. We don’t just deliver data; we provide actionable insights that our clients can immediately apply to their operations.

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