Colombia’s environmental licensing authority ANLA granted Frontera Energy an environmental license to explore the VIM-46 block, an Exploratory Drilling Area located in the municipality of Magangué, Bolívar, in the Lower Magdalena Valley.
The Ministry of Finance issued Decree 0288 on March 19, 2026, adding CoP$2.87T to the Sistema General de Regalías (SGR) budget for the 2025–2026 biennium, responding to a significant decline in royalties revenue that has reduced the resources available to Colombia’s departments and municipalities.
Colombia’s fuel pricing pendulum reversed course on April 1, 2026, as the Comisión de Regulación de Energía y Gas (CREG) issued Circular 260 authorizing an increase of approximately CoP$375 per gallon in regular gasoline — ending a two-month relief period during which the government had cut prices twice, each time by CoP$500, for a cumulative reduction of CoP$1,000.
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.
Promigas posted stable financial results for 2025 – revenues of CoP$6.7T (+1%), net profit up 2% to CoP$1.07T, and EBITDA flat at CoP$2.4T – but the more significant strategic story is the company’s deepening transformation from a pure-play gas infrastructure operator into a diversified energy platform, even as its gas operations delivered some of their most consequential results to date.
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