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Tomás González, former Minister of Mines and Energy and current director of the Centro Regional de Estudios de Energía (CREE), used a recent interview with El Tiempo’s María Isabel Rueda to deliver both his most direct assessment of the energy crisis the incoming government inherits and his most explicit argument for why hydrocarbons – not just renewables – are Colombia’s path out of it.

Ecopetrol disclosed on July 17 that an unidentified external actor successfully accessed its cloud storage environments without authorization, downloading data associated with approximately 3,300 user accounts across 15 companies within the Ecopetrol Group.

Campo Rubiales completed a decade of direct operation under Ecopetrol on July 3^rd, 2026 – marked from the moment in July 2016 when the state oil company assumed control of the field following the expiry of the operating contract held by Pacific Rubiales, now Frontera Energy.

Ricardo Roa’s leave from Ecopetrol expires July 27^th and under his contract he would legally return as company president on July 28^th – just ten days before the August 7^th inauguration of Abelardo de la Espriella, who has called him a thief and a criminal and whose government’s stated first act is to convene an extraordinary shareholders meeting to replace him.

Brazil’s securities regulator CVM handed Ecopetrol a procedural victory on July 15^th, ruling in favor of Ecopetrol Investimentos do Brasil in the administrative appeal that had kept the Brava Energía tender offer suspended since June 19^th.

Writing in Portafolio, Sylvia Escovar – former president of Terpel and current chair of the GeoPark board – published a pointed opinion piece framing the question of who leads Ecopetrol not as a personnel decision but as an institutional one with consequences for the entire country.

Ecopetrol published its formal El Niño contingency plan on July 9, revealing the most consequential near-term contribution it can make to the national electricity system: two regasification projects that together will add 360 GBTUD of gas import capacity, equivalent to approximately 35% of national gas demand which could support up to 1,000 MW of additional thermoelectric generation through the critical dry season.

Ecopetrol has temporarily suspended the contracting process for shutdown and maintenance services at its Barrancabermeja and Cartagena refineries — a procurement worth approximately US$700M — following a corruption scandal that combined an anonymous bribery complaint sent to board members in May with two internal memos from senior refinery officials demanding the process be frozen before the government handover.

Miguel Gómez Martínez, designated Finance Minister for the incoming de la Espriella administration, gave Valora Analitik his most candid assessment yet of Ecopetrol’s condition and the incoming government’s economic framework in a wide-ranging interview published July 4.

Cerro Matoso, the ferronickel producer in Córdoba owned by CoreX following South32’s exit, confirmed on July 1 that it has reduced operations by 25% due to gas supply restrictions already imposed by Canacol — a cut the company says puts hundreds of direct jobs and contracts with local suppliers and contractors at risk, along with royalty and tax flows to both the department and the national treasury.