News and AnalysIs for

Energy and Mines Minister Edwin Palma represented Colombia at CERAWeek in Houston on March 25, 2026, using one of the global energy sector’s most prominent forums to advance the Petro government’s framing of the energy transition as a technically grounded, socially responsible process rather than an ideological commitment.

Three Bloomberg Línea analyses published in mid-to-late March paint a nuanced and cautionary picture of how the Middle East conflict’s energy price shock is landing across Latin America — one in which the instinct to read rising oil as a regional windfall is increasingly being challenged.

Ecopetrol has obtained water use certification for five additional production fields, bringing the total number of certified assets to 23 — a roster that includes the Barrancabermeja and Cartagena refineries.

Our 2026 publishing plan called for a discussion of CAPEX and Brent assumptions this week since we expected to have the major companies’ 2025 reports. We will do that but the Iran War has played havoc with oil prices and President Donald Trump’s speech the other night apparently reassured no one that global crude markets would return to normal anytime soon.

Ecopetrol has pushed back against the more optimistic timelines attached to Colombia’s energy transition, publishing a forward-looking assessment – based on UPME data – that liquid fossil fuels will remain essential to the country’s energy matrix through at least 2040, even under transition scenarios, and that gasoline in particular is heading toward significant import dependence.

Despite a fraught electoral environment, rising interest rates, fiscal imbalances, and a 15% decline in total foreign direct investment in 2025 to US$11.5B, Colombia has opened 2026 with a striking wave of corporate transactions – a paradox that analysts trace to structural investment dynamics that operate on timelines longer than any single electoral cycle.