A comparative analysis published by El Espectador, drawing on five sector experts and research from Corficolombiana and Bancolombia, finds that Ecopetrol’s financial deterioration since 2022 has been materially more severe than that of comparable state oil companies in the region – and that the gap cannot be explained by oil price movements alone.
The Unión Sindical Obrera (USO), Ecopetrol’s principal labor union, announced the creation of a scientific committee to evaluate the feasibility of hydraulic fracturing in Colombia — a move that placed the union in direct conflict with Energy Minister Edwin Palma, a former USO president himself, who promptly called his former colleagues mistaken.
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.
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.
Ecopetrol’s acting president Juan Carlos Hurtado signaled in a press conference that the company is actively reviewing whether to revise its investment plan upward in response to the sharp rise in international crude prices triggered by the US-Israel conflict with Iran.
In his first press conference as acting president of Ecopetrol, Juan Carlos Hurtado Parra set a deliberately operational tone, laying out eight strategic priorities for the company while distancing himself from the political turbulence that preceded his appointment.
The governance fallout from Ricardo Roa’s leave of absence from Ecopetrol’s presidency has taken a new turn, with a minority shareholder of ISA filing a formal petition questioning whether his temporary removal from the helm of the parent company also affects his roles on the boards of subsidiaries ISA and Hocol.
Parex Resources reported Q1 2026 average production of 44,735 boed – below the low end of its full-year guidance range of 45,000–49,000 boed – driven primarily by declines and disappointing drilling results at its LLA-32 block.
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