RIYADH: Oil prices rebounded early on Wednesday, recovering after two straight sessions of losses, as expectations of a hawkish Federal Reserve meeting later in the day and possible US crude stock drawdowns outweighed China demand worries. Brent futures gained 14 cents to $76.04 a barrel at 9:15 a.m. Saudi time. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures increased 26 cents to $71.45 a barrel. Colombia to continue exporting fossil fuels: minister On Tuesday, Finance Minister Ricardo Bonilla said Colombia would continue to extract fossil fuels for “much longer” until it has other exports to replace the revenue from oil and coal. He said this in the context of diversifying the country’s financing with carbon credits and green bonds. Fossil fuels are the South American nation’s primary sources of revenue. Investors were concerned when President Gustavo Petro came to power in August, aiming to decouple the economy from fossil fuels and make way for renewable energy, which drove the local peso to a record low against the dollar in November. Bonilla said the switch to renewable energy would be a lengthy process. “The energy transition is going to take 15 to 20 years, and we are going to continue exporting oil and coal for much longer,” Bonilla told Reuters. The minister was fresh off a meeting in New York with investors, whose main concern was assurances around fossil fuel revenues. “The most important issue is how we closed the discussion on oil exploration and exploitation, which was to show the map of where the exploration fields are in Colombia (and) the current contracts,” added the official, who was appointed in late April as Petro’s second finance minister in less than eight months. Bonilla specified that the country has 202 hydrocarbon exploration contracts in about 17 million hectares where oil or gas has traditionally been found. He added that Colombia has proven reserves of seven years, “but with some contingencies that oil could go up to 10 years and gas up to 20 years.” OMV Petrom greenlights offshore Black Sea gas project Neptun Deep On Wednesday, Romanian oil and gas group OMV Petrom, majority-controlled by Austria’s OMV, said it made the final investment decision to develop the long-awaited Black Sea deep-water gas project, Neptun Deep. The company, which will develop the project jointly with state-owned gas producer Romgaz, expects the first gas output by 2027. The project is estimated to cost 4 billion euros ($4.36 billion) and will be split jointly between the two companies, with spending mostly between 2024 and 2026. Neptun Deep is expected to hold recoverable volumes of around 100 billion cubic meters of gas. (With input from Reuters)