Despite the collapse in the price of oil, strong bet Petrobras Buenos Aires, Argentina on January 26, 2009 does not doubt that, in the current situation of the world economy, the incentive to invest in the oil sector are much smaller which existed until mid-2008. The price of oil just touching the $40 barrel (a truly unimaginable level a couple of months ago), and with prospects for continuing depressed throughout 2009 and part of 2010, make the investment projects in the oil area much less profitable than when a barrel of crude was trading at nearly four times more than its current level. Despite this, several companies in the sector are still making investments and betting to expand taking advantage of this time of uncertainty and depression, to repositioned in the global crude oil market.So that at the end of the month of December I said in an article the crisis slows down to Colombia, but not to Ecopetrol, the Colombian oil company ECOPETROL (BVC:ECOPETROL projects; NYSE:EC), that it had decided to increase its investment plans for 2009. ECOPETROL announced late 2008 investment of $6.224 billion for the year, presenting three times more invested in 2007 (and 35% more than in 2008). aried view. As well as ECOPETROL in Colombia aims to expand and grow to achieve that the country autoabastezca of crude and even net exporter, Petrobras also (BVSP:PETR3; NYSE:PBR), plans to invest US $174.400 million for the period 2009-2013, as announced last Friday afternoon its President, Jose Sergio Gabrielli. Investment of the new plan represents a 54% increase compared to the of the five year period 2008-2012 (which amounted to $112,000 m). Also, Brazilian mixed oil company (controlled by the State of Brazil), announced that its goal is to produce 3.3 million barrels per day for the year 2013 (and 4.6 million barrels a day by 2015). Petrobras currently produces 2.4 million barrels per day (both inside and outside of the) borders of Brazil).