Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp., an oil producer operating in Colombia, said output will surge by about 70 percent by the end of next year as fields in the eastern part of the South American country ramp up production.

Output from fields operated by Rubiales will climb to about 170,000 barrels a day, said Federico Restrepo, vice president of corporate affairs. The Toronto-based company said yesterday in a statement that output surpassed 100,000 barrels a day.

Gains at the Rubiales and Quifa blocks, which are partly owned by state-run Ecopetrol SA, will fuel the increase, he said. Colombia probably will surpass Argentina this year to become the third-biggest oil producer in South America after Venezuela and Brazil, according to the state-run National Hydrocarbons Agency.

“Colombia has a lot of oil reserves still to be discovered,” Restrepo said yesterday in an interview in Bogota.

Overall output in Colombia will rise to 800,000 barrels of oil a day next year, Armando Zamora, director of the state-run National Hydrocarbons Agency, said this week. Output was 679,000 barrels in September.

President Alvaro Uribe has repelled rebel troops and improved infrastructure security since taking office in 2002, drawing investment to the country.

Crude oil futures have climbed 80 percent this year, the fourth-best performance among 19 raw materials tracked by the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index. Crude for December delivery fell 1.4 percent to $80.05 a barrel at 11:23 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Ecopetrol owns 60 percent of the Rubiales field and 40 percent of Quifa, while Pacific Rubiales owns the remainder, according to data on the Canadian company’s Web site.

Production of natural gas also will rise at Pacific Rubiales’s wholly owned La Creciente field, Restrepo said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Heather Walsh at hlwalsh@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 23, 2009 11:47 EDT