A post-mortem analysis by Asoenergía – the Colombian Association of Large Industrial and Commercial Energy Consumers – of the October 2025 maintenance shutdown of the SPEC LNG regasification terminal in Cartagena has revealed how poor supply planning drove residential gas contract prices to nearly three times their normal level in just a matter of days.
The Refinería de Cartagena (Reficar) returned to normal operations by March 24, 2026, nine days after an electrical supply failure struck the facility on March 15. Ecopetrol confirmed that all processing units are operating normally and that the supply of refined fuels to the national market was maintained throughout the incident.
The decision to halt the Komodo deepwater well – a joint project between Ecopetrol and Occidental Petroleum in the Colombian Caribbean – did not merely delay an exploration campaign.
President Gustavo Petro announced on March 25, 2026 that Colombia will withdraw from the international investment arbitration system – the framework under which foreign investors can bring disputes against states before private arbitral tribunals rather than national courts – citing the structural bias he argues such tribunals exhibit in favor of private claimants over sovereign governments.
A Constitutional Court ruling issued in October 2025 — Sentence T-390-25 — has sent shockwaves through Colombia’s oil and gas sector by holding Ecopetrol and its logistics subsidiary Cenit responsible for environmental and human rights damages caused by armed group attacks on the Oleoducto Trasandino (OTA), a 300-kilometer crude oil pipeline in Nariño that has been suspended since 2023 and for which no restart date exists.
NG Energy International filed its 2025 annual results on March 30, 2026 — a document that tells two stories simultaneously: a year of operational turbulence absorbed and resolved, and a company that has fundamentally repositioned itself for a materially stronger 2026.
A trade dispute between Colombia and Ecuador is imposing significant operational and cost penalties on oil producers in Putumayo, forcing Ecopetrol and GeoPark to reroute production through longer, more expensive domestic corridors instead of the Sistema de Oleoducto Transecuatoriano (SOTE) that has historically been the basin’s primary export pathway.
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.
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