French oil company Maurel & Prom is preparing to invest between US$150M and US$180M over the next two years to delineate a gas discovery in the Sinú-9 block in Córdoba department, with the company and industry observers hoping the play could provide medium-term relief for Colombia’s deepening gas supply crisis.
The Ecopetrol-Petrobras Colombia consortium has confirmed that first gas from the offshore Sirius field will be delivered in 2030, with the project currently in the contracting phase ahead of construction. The announcement came from both companies’ presidents at the Naturgas Congress in Cartagena.
Ecopetrol announced on April 23, 2026 that it had entered into a Share Purchase Agreement to acquire approximately 26% of Brazilian oil and gas company Brava Energía S.A. — the second-largest independent listed company in Brazil by reserves and production — from a group of significant shareholders including Jive, Yellowstone, and Bloco Somah Printemps Quantum.
Drummond Energy, the energy arm of US coal giant Drummond Ltd., is advancing plans to build a new liquefied natural gas regasification terminal at Ciénaga, Magdalena — a location adjacent to the company’s existing deep-water port infrastructure on the Caribbean coast approximately 10 km from Santa Marta.
Moody’s Ratings downgraded Ecopetrol’s global credit rating one notch from Ba1 to Ba2 on April 23, 2026, and simultaneously shifted the company’s outlook from stable to negative — the second credit action against the state oil company in less than a month, following a similar move by S&P roughly 20 days earlier.
Four families in the municipality of Orito, Putumayo, have received new homes through Plan Padrino, the corporate volunteering program run by Parex Resources.
Parex Resources, Colombia’s largest independent oil producer, expects its output in the country to grow strongly following its acquisition of Frontera Energy’s Colombian assets — a transaction that will make Parex two to three times larger than any other private operator in the market.
The regasification terminal that Transportadora de Gas Internacional (TGI), a subsidiary of Grupo Energía Bogotá, announced in October 2025 for the Ballena field in La Guajira will not be ready in January 2027 as originally projected — and may now not enter service until early 2028.
Five of Ecopetrol’s nine board members received an extraordinary summons by email on the morning of April 15 and gathered at Casa de Nariño with President Gustavo Petro — a meeting that triggered a sharp dispute between competing accounts of what was discussed and what may come next for Ricardo Roa.
Ecopetrol acting president Juan Carlos Hurtado confirmed that the company is actively pursuing a US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) license to allow both Ecopetrol and Grupo ISA to import gas from Venezuela and reactivate bilateral energy projects — the clearest public signal yet that the NOC views Venezuela as a near-term operational priority rather than a long-term aspiration.
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