Monday, June 29th, 2026
Abelardo de la Espriella won Colombia’s presidency on the strength of a popular wave, but Cambio reports that the congressional arithmetic that awaits him on August 7th bears little resemblance to the enthusiasm of his rallies.


Abelardo de la Espriella’s June 21 runoff victory prompted JPMorgan to formalize its post-election Colombia thesis under the acronym T.I.G.R.E. — drawn from the president-elect’s campaign nickname “El Tigre” — covering Trade, Investment, Growth, Retrenchment, and Enforcement.
The prospective end of the US-Iran conflict and the expected reopening of the Strait of Hormuz have sent crude prices sharply lower, with Brent falling into the US$70s per barrel, levels not seen since before the outbreak of hostilities.
Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy and the National Hydrocarbon Agency (ANH) presented the 2025 Resources and Reserves Report (IRR 2025) on June 23, certifying that the country’s proven oil reserves held essentially flat at 2,020 million barrels as of December 31, 2025, with the reserves-to-production ratio (R/P) improving to 7.4 years from 7.2 despite a 4% drop in annual production and a 14% decline in average Brent prices.
While still not yet official, Abelardo de la Espriella won Colombia’s June 21 presidential runoff with 12,949,162 votes against Iván Cepeda’s 12,701,546, a margin of 250,830 votes and 0.95 percentage points, the narrowest gap in percentage terms since the second-round system was introduced in 1994. Cepeda has now conceded defeat.
Two of Colombia’s most prominent oil and gas industry associations moved quickly after the June 21 second-round result to signal institutional alignment with president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella.
Ecopetrol and Germany’s development cooperation agency GIZ signed an agreement on June 19 to conduct feasibility and engineering studies for a Power-to-Liquid pilot plant at the Cartagena refinery, aimed at producing e-SAF — electronic Sustainable Aviation Fuel — from green hydrogen.