Brazilian state-controlled energy company Petrobras plans to invest close to $400 million in Colombia over the next three years, Colombian business daily Portafolio reported Wednesday.

'Petrobras is attuned to business opportunities that arise on a daily basis and looks to see if they are appealing. When they appear, it seizes on those opportunities,' the president of the Brazilian giant's subsidiary in Colombia, Abilio Paulo Pinheiro Ramons, told the newspaper.

'All the money we generate in Colombia is invested here. All our business plans for the 2010-14 period have yet to be announced, because that depends on decisions by the parent company, but as far as the business plans for the 2009-13 period, our investment budget amounts to roughly $400 million,' he said.

Even though Petrobras has announced restrictions on overseas investments this year to ensure greater cash flow for domestic projects, Pinheiro said the four-year plan for Colombia would go through as planned both in terms of exploration and production.

Petrobras Colombia Limited this year plans to carry out exploratory drilling at four or five wells and develop between three and four producing wells.

In total, Petrobras's Colombian subsidiary is a partner in seven production fields - serving as the operator at five of those - and 20 exploratory blocks nationwide, six of them offshore in the Caribbean. It also has a network of 74 service stations and a lubricant plant in Bogota.

Petrobras announced last week that it discovered oil at a block in eastern Colombia operated by its local unit.

Petrobras, Latin America's second-largest oil company after Venezuela's PDVSA, produces an average of 2.5 million barrels of oil and natural gas per day at its fields in Brazil and abroad.

Shares of Petrobras, an integrated energy company and a global leader in deepwater oil exploration and production, trade on the Sao Paulo, New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires stock exchanges, but the Brazilian government retains control through a golden share.

--IANS/EFE

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