The Petro government issued decrees on March 27, 2026 fixing a 7% salary increase for public servants working in national entities of the executive and judicial branches, with the same adjustment applying to teachers. The increase is retroactive to January 2026.
Canacol Energy Ltd. announces that, on March 26, 2026, the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta granted an order in the Company’s ongoing restructuring proceedings under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (Canada) approving the engagement of Breakpoint Advisory Partners LLC (“Breakpoint”) as Chief Restructuring Officer (“CRO”) of the Company.
No one can say 2026 has been uneventful in the oil and gas sector. A bidding war for Frontera’s E&P assets, potential for a change in the economic program in Colombia with a new president on August 7th and the Iran War send Brent up over US120 are but a few of the noteworthy items. Perhaps the biggest for Latin America with important implications for Colombia is the US intervention in Venezuela which promises to revitalize that country’s oil and gas production. However, will the promise be realized and what are the opportunities for companies in Colombia? We asked Jorge Neher, a Venezuelan Partner at Dentons Cardenas and Cardenas, who has lived and worked in Colombia for almost two decades, with deep knowledge of both countries’ oil and gas sectors, to tell us what is happening on the ground and how things could play out.
The Ministry of Mines and Energy sent a formal request to Ecopetrol president Ricardo Roa on March 4, 2026, requiring a detailed report on the volumes of natural gas consumed by the company’s refineries during 2025 and the current year to date.
Speaking at the National Municipalities Congress in Cartagena on March 13, 2026, the deputy director of Colombia’s General Royalties System (SGR), Rubin Ariel Huffington Rodríguez, presented the Petro government’s royalties investment record, claiming CoP$46T mobilized across 13,127 approved projects since August 2022.
Energy and Mines Minister Edwin Palma met on March 17, 2026 with U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Jarahn Hillsman and his economic team to review bilateral cooperation and investment opportunities across Colombia’s energy sector.
We are rebuilding our fuel price database to capture more information while making it easier to update. Here is the first new chart, gasoline prices by city over time, here summarized to make it easier to read.
Ecopetrol’s regasification strategy has been forced into a pivot: the Coveñas project in Sucre, which had been billed as a 110 MMcfd import terminal, has effectively been shelved as a near-term priority after a series of bureaucratic delays, while the Puerto Bahía terminal in Cartagena — developed in partnership with Frontera Energy — has been accelerated to fill the gap.
Writing on X on March 22, 2026, President Gustavo Petro outlined his government’s response to the prospect of oil prices climbing to US$180/barrel by May – a scenario flagged by Saudi Arabia – placing Ecopetrol at the center of a new fertilizer subsidy mechanism while firmly closing the door on gasoline subsidies.
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