Monday, April 20th, 2026
In a televised council of ministers in February, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Ecopetrol would be bankrupt if oil fell below US$60/bl. We don’t expect Petro to get his sums right but we thought we’d better check, just in case.
Colombia’s energy and gas regulator CREG has opened a regulatory sandbox pilot to test potential changes to the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) market before committing to permanent regulatory amendments.
With Brent crude surpassing US$100/bbl on the back of the Middle East conflict, Colombia’s foreign exchange market is facing a moment of redefinition – and ANIF’s latest analysis warns that the textbook relationship between oil prices and the peso can no longer be taken for granted.
Ecopetrol exceeded its own exploration targets in 2025, drilling 16 wells against an original plan of 10 and achieving a success rate that acting president Juan Carlos Hurtado described as the best in the company’s history.
S&P Global Ratings cut Ecopetrol’s long-term credit rating from BB to BB- with a stable outlook in April, following its simultaneous downgrade of Colombia’s sovereign rating — the worst in the country’s history at that level.
Colombia’s March 2026 inflation reading came in at 5.56%, marking the second consecutive monthly increase since February, but the energy components of the basket told a contrasting story of deceleration rather than acceleration.
Ecopetrol’s share price has staged a striking recovery — up roughly 20% through March on the back of Brent crude surging past US$100/bbl from sub-US$70 levels before the Middle East conflict — but a convergence of analyst commentary, market data and reputational indices paints a more troubling picture of the state of Colombia’s state oil company.
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