Colombia's Ecopetrol hopes to list shares in H2

BOGOTA, March 27 (Reuters) - Colombia's state oil company, Ecopetrol, hopes to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in the second half of the year, company President Javier Gutierrez said on Thursday.

Ecopetrol ECO.CN privatized 10.1 percent of itself by selling $2.8 billion of stock to Colombian investors in 2007. It was the first time that Ecopetrol opened itself to private investment.

The company said all proceeds from the privatization are being invested in itself as it tries to revitalize an oil sector stunted by a four-decade-old guerrilla war in which leftist rebels often bomb pipelines.

President Alvaro Uribe, in power since 2002, has spurred economic growth with his U.S.-backed crackdown on the guerrillas. His security policies have reduced crime, especially in urban areas, but the guerrillas still control wide swathes of countryside. (Reporting by Javier Mozzo Pena, Writing by Hugh Bronstein, Editing by Toni Reinhold)