Ecopetrol to Push Ahead Colombia Gas Drilling After Shell Exit
Ecopetrol SA plans to continue drilling for natural gas in Colombian Caribbean waters after partner Shell Plc exited three offshore blocks, betting on growing domestic demand and potentially lucrative reserves.
Shell said in April it would pull out of the COL-5, Purple Angel and Fuerte Sur blocks as part of a 'strategic' decision, ending its oil and gas exploration in Colombia. Ecopetrol, which jointly operates the areas, will move forward on its own or seek a new partner, according to Rafael Guzman, vice president of hydrocarbons.
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Brazil's Economy Surges Again as High Rates Fail to Dent Growth
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Sir Bob Reid, visionary British Rail chief whose success could not stave off privatisation
Sir Bob Reid, who has died aged 91, chaired British Rail from 1990 to 1995 after a distinguished career with Shell. He oversaw the achievement of unprecedented levels of efficiency, but could not prevent John Major's government privatising – and fragmenting – the network. A visionary leader who had made very few enemies in a fiercely competitive industry, as chairman and chief executive of Shell UK from 1985 Reid turned what had been a sprawling bureaucracy into a tightly run and highly profitable concern. When Margaret Thatcher's Transport Secretary Cecil Parkinson needed a new chairman for BR, Reid – with whom he had worked closely as Energy Secretary – ticked all the boxes. Known as Bob Reid II as his predecessor was also Sir Robert Reid, he inherited Europe's most cost-effective railway, with InterCity profitable and operating more 100mph trains than any other network. He was surprised to find BR more efficiently managed and faring better by international standards than the public and politicians allowed. During the 1980s BR had cut its losses and increased income by reorganising into business sectors. Pressure for even greater economy grew as the Treasury – facing a deep recession for which Reid said BR was being asked to shoulder the blame – cut its subsidy further. He repeatedly challenged ministers over the contradiction between their talk of private-sector-style management and their refusal to let BR raise capital itself or form joint ventures. Yet he was a perennial optimist. After one public disagreement Reid, asked if he intended resigning, replied: 'You don't leave the pantomime halfway through.' Reid fought BR's corner hard. He warned: 'A Shell board is made up of people who have a depth of understanding of what the practical problems are and what you can and can't do. Here the board – the Secretary of State and the Cabinet – is made up of people who have not had that operational experience. The chances of not finding a practical solution are really quite high.' Importantly, he imposed on BR the safety culture of the offshore industry, bringing a sharp reduction in the number of track workers killed and injured. Under his leadership BR, through a process branded Organising for Quality (OfQ), replaced its historic regions with a chain of self-contained businesses each responsible for train operation, track and signalling. Thirteen months after OfQ took effect in April 1991, Major confounded the pundits by winning a fourth Tory term, having given a manifesto pledge to privatise the railways – a commitment from which even Margaret Thatcher had shied. Reid urged the new Transport Secretary John MacGregor – who had been taught economics at university by Reid's wife – to privatise BR as a whole, or, failing that, sector by sector. This was not what ministers wanted, though there was initially disagreement between Major, who wanted a return to the pre-nationalisation 'Big Four' railway companies, and the Treasury, who proposed auctioning the path for each individual train. As the privatisation Bill was drafted, Reid warned MPs it could become a 'lawyers' paradise, inordinately expensive and bureaucratic'. The Act, passed in November 1993, divided BR the following April into Railtrack, 25 passenger train operating companies, 13 infrastructure maintenance companies, three freight companies, three rolling stock companies and more. Reid oversaw the restructuring and attempted to carry on improving services and keeping finances tight until each part was sold off under his successor John Welsby. He left in 1995, warning that some operators could go bust after privatisation; MTL and Prism, allocated six passenger franchises between them, would sell up to avoid such a fate. At Shell, Reid was noted for masterminding large capital projects. At BR he took direct responsibility for having passenger and freight services to the Continent ready to run as soon as the Channel Tunnel opened, as happened in 1994 after considerable delays. He joined BR with plans for a high-speed link between London and the Tunnel well advanced. Then Parkinson decided the model for financing it was unsustainable, and subsequently Michael Heseltine secured the link's diversion through east London. Reid described the Government's handling of the project as a 'pantomine'; it would be 2007 before the line reached St Pancras. Outgoing and gregarious with a dry wit, Reid was a phenomenally hard worker, and completely without side. A traveller stranded at Euston in the small hours found himself offered a lift by a one-armed man in an old grey pullover who refused a proferred tip, murmuring: 'I'm actually the chairman.' He devoted much of his spare time to community work in Tower Hamlets with his wife, who played a very important part in his life. Reid had lost his right arm aged nine in a mincing machine while helping in his father's butcher's shop. He endured it with courage and equanimity: 'It was fairly traumatic at the time but once you've lost it, you've lost it and you move on.' Move on he did, to chair Shell and become a champion golfer. He refused a prosthetic arm lest it spoil his swing, describing himself as 'a golf fanatic... passion is too weak a word, it is a philosophy, almost a religion.' Robert Paul Reid was born at Cupar, Fife, on May 1 1934, the son of Philip Reid and his wife Margaret. From Cupar Academy, he read political economy and modern history at nearby St Andrew's University. He joined Shell as a management trainee in 1956 and spent 22 years overseas with the company. Starting on the Sarawak and Brunei oilfields, he moved to Nigeria in 1959 as head of personnel, weathering the war over the secession of Biafra, then in 1968 became PA and planning adviser to the chairman of Shell and BP Kenya. Reid returned to Nigeria – a country he loved and where he did much to encourage boxing – in 1970 as managing director, then in 1974 moved to the same position in Thailand, experiencing a military coup. He did not serve in London until 1978, as vice-president for international aviation and products trading. Three years as executive director for downstream oil with Shell Australia followed, before he returned to headquarters as co-ordinator for supply and marketing. He joined the board of Shell International in 1984, then in 1985 took charge of Shell UK. On the way up, Reid proved adept at motivating managers scattered far and wide. As chairman he excelled in crisis management, notably steering Shell through the 1986 world oil price collapse while increasing profits. He won high praise for averting massive pollution of the Mersey from an oil-pipe leak, an operation of which he took personal command. Stepping down at Shell's retirement age of 55 for executives who had served in punishing climates, Reid was snapped up by Parkinson to chair BR. He quickly concluded that the railways needed less political dogma and more spending on deteriorating track, signalling and rolling stock. Reid proposed a £10 billion five-year investment programme, but with few illusions about the Government's likely response: 'When it comes to finance, railways have always been tail-end Charlie.' His championing of BR's case was not what some Tory politicians wanted to hear, and a whispering campaign alleged he had 'gone native'. He treated this with his customary equanimity. The recession hit BR just as business was taking off, particularly on its regional services which had been written off as hopeless loss-makers. Reid attributed this recovery to innovations and efficiency improvements pushed through by his predecessor and namesake, observing: 'Give me the Italian subsidy and everyone could travel for free. And I would give the passengers a tenner for Christmas.' As Reid disengaged from BR, he became an active chairman of London Electricity and Sears (as it sold its last shoe shops) and deputy governor of the Bank of Scotland. He later chaired the International Petroleum Exchange and Avis Europe. Reid also chaired the Foundation for Management Training, the British Institute of Management, the Industrial Society, the Foundation for Young Musicians and the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama. In 2021 he published a memoir: No Condition Is Permanent: Risk, adventure and return. He was knighted in 1990. Robert Reid married the former Joan Oram in Singapore in 1957; she died in 2017. He is survived by their three sons. Sir Bob Reid, born May 1 1934, died May 28 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Fox News
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WATCH: US intel's take on TdA gang misses mark on ties to Maduro regime, ex-Venezuela army officer says
A former high-ranking officer in the Venezuelan military is contesting a recent report by the U.S. intelligence community about the massive Tren de Aragua gang present throughout the country. Jose Arocha, who is a former lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan military, told Fox News Digital that the recent intel community report denying Tren de Aragua is linked to the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is missing a key aspect: the socialist regime's animosity towards the United States and penchant for asymmetric warfare. Tren de Aragua, also known simply as TdA, is a violent Venezuelan gang that has been terrorizing U.S. cities over the last several years. The group is linked to high-profile murders such as the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and the seizure of an entire apartment building in Aurora, Colorado. As one of his first moves back in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump directed the State Department to designate TdA a "foreign terrorist organization." Speaking with Fox News Digital via Zoom, Arocha, a national security expert at the Center for a Secure Free Society, said he agrees with the Trump administration's moves against Tren de Aragua, which he believes is an "asymmetrical warfare" tool of the Maduro regime to sow discord in the United States and other countries in the Western Hemisphere. "The Maduro regime doesn't need to send troops to the USA. It sends criminals instead," he said. "TdA is a plug-and-play insurgency – assembled in prison, deployed abroad." Arocha's statements, however, contrast with a new public memo released by U.S. intelligence agencies last month that denied any solid connection between the Maduro government in Caracas and the gang. "While Venezuela's permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States," the report states. The report says that the intelligence community based its conclusion "on Venezuelan law enforcement actions demonstrating the regime treats TDA as a threat; an uneasy mix of cooperation and confrontation rather than top-down directives [that] characterize the regime's ties to other armed groups; and the decentralized makeup of TDA that would make such a relationship logistically challenging." Arocha, meanwhile, said that "the missing point here is that the intelligence report is too narrow a lens about the TdA." "It's about crime and migration, but they're missing the warfare dimension," he said. "They are missing that for the Maduro regime, the United States is the enemy, has been the enemy for years." "The TdA is not a gang," he went on. "It's the enabler arm of the Venezuelan regime in the hybrid warfare strategy, the asymmetrical tour of war. That's the missing point. And that is the point that explains how a local gang is right now in more than 10 countries, including the United States. That's incredible, and that is not possible without a state sponsor behind them." While the report points to law enforcement actions the Maduro government has taken against TdA, Arocha explained that in reality Venezuelan prisons, including the "Tocorón" prison where the gang started, are more like resort hotels. "Tocorón, [which] they said is the epicenter of the crime in Venezuela, it wasn't a prison, it was a palace for organized crime. Full equipment, we have a zoo, nightclubs and even a pool for the prisoners there," he said. Arocha also posited that the 2023 raid the Venezuelan government conducted on Tocorón "appears choreographed" and that key TdA leadership was able to escape through pre-made tunnels. "While the regime gained optics of cracking down on crime, TdA's mobility remained intact," Arocha told Fox News Digital. The intel report admitted that the escaped TdA members were "possibly assisted by low-level Venezuelan military and political leaders." But to Arocha, the connection goes straight to the top. He pointed to the kidnapping and murder of Venezuelan political dissident Ronald Ojeda in Chile, which, according to Reuters, is being investigated by the Chilean government as a possible Tren de Aragua operation sponsored by the Maduro government. Reuters reported in March that Chilean Attorney General Angel Valencia said that Ojeda's murder "doesn't have the characteristics of a normal crime" and "all the evidence we have at this state of the investigation lets us conclude that a cell or group linked to the Tren de Aragua that was politically motivated that originated from an order of a political nature." The outlet also reported that the Venezuelan government denied the accusations as baseless. Arocha further pointed to former Maduro Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who has alleged ties to Hamas and Hezbollah, as evidence that the Venezuelan government is embedded with America's worst enemies. El Aissami was arrested on corruption charges and is currently in prison. "He has a strong influence with Iran and China and Russia, too. Right now, he's in prison, which means that he's living in the palace in prison," Arocha remarked, smiling. "The Venezuelan regime is a proxy of Russia, China and Iran, especially China right now," he went on. "They use Venezuela [to] create chaos in Latin America especially … not confronting directly the United States, but indirectly, using criminals, using disinformation, using every single tool they have." In response, Arocha urged the Trump administration to continue to take a whole-of-government approach in combating TdA. He urged the administration to "increase our scope" by reaching out to Latin American countries with experience with TdA, such as the Chilean government. "They have a knowledge right now about the TdA. We have to understand what they've learned about, and we have to put all the pieces together to have the big picture instead of the local one," he said. "And then I'm very sure that we are going to realize the missing and the main link is in Caracas."
