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There is presently a shortage of international oil companies investing in South America, due primarily to political instability associated with high levels of corruption, poor quality of institutions, and demanding fiscal regimes that strip significant amounts of revenue from investors. The purpose of this research is to obtain a comprehensive country ranking for South America in terms of investment risk in the upstream oil sector. The study identifies six risk categories (political risk, macroeconomic risk, technical risk, investment climate, non-renewable energy resources potential, and environmental constraint) and ten sub-indicators associated with these risks. The data are gathered to perform an ‘analytic hierarchy process (AHP)’ to obtain the weight index of the ten sub-indicators. These are then used in a ‘technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS)’ to obtain the country-ranking risk arrangement. Results indicate that countries with low-risk investment include Brazil, Colombia and Peru, while high-risk countries include Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia. Finally, this study suggests that countries whose proportions of government take exceed 75% should modify their fiscal regimes to optimize benefits for all parties or design fiscal systems where the host government and contractor share the risk and reward associated with exploiting oil resources.

A system of well monitoring in real time was developed, that is cost-effective and reliable. It allows the the obtained the real time data gattering. Among the advantages of this system is the low price and effectiveness; as it uses low cost electronic components and an inexpensive communication network. The main electronic components used, are the Arduino controller and the wireless information transmitter using the free bandwidth in the world: 2.4GHz, which allows programming a more effective communication network (ZigBee Network); the power supply is based on photovoltaic cells (5V). The ZigBee Network Technology achieved its goal of keeping all interconnected points. The limited range of the transmitters (1500m) was overcome by the use of interconnected network points, which can build a grid to cover the entire field. The tested prototype was composite of four points in a transmition station – simulating a control room The system is based on good quality and low cost equipment, that aims to reduce the production deferment and artificial lift equipment failures; by the implementation of a system that generates alerts according to the monitored parameters.

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