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Speaking at the Naturgas industry association congress in Cartagena, Energy Minister Edwin Palma used a wide-ranging address to defend the government’s record on gas supply, reaffirm its no-new-exploration pledge, and signal an upcoming bilateral energy meeting with Venezuela – while acknowledging that past infrastructure decisions have left Colombia dangerously exposed on gas imports.

Frontera Energy and Ecopetrol are pressing toward a December 2026 commissioning of the Puerto Bahía regasification terminal in Cartagena, which would give Colombia its second LNG import point and — at full capacity — the ability to cover 40% of national gas demand, currently estimated at 1,000 mmcfd, according to La República.

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.

Speaking at the Naturgas annual congress in Cartagena, Energy Minister Edwin Palma announced a proposal to implement an open season auction mechanism for viable regasification projects — a market instrument that would allow CREG to assess user demand before infrastructure is built, providing financial viability guarantees and efficient capacity allocation before capital is committed.

A Corficolombiana research report cited by Bloomberg Línea delivers the starkest assessment yet of Colombia’s gas supply trajectory: production is in freefall, imports are surging to compensate, and the country is becoming dangerously dependent on infrastructure never designed for the role it is now playing.

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.

In a wide-ranging interview, Luz Stella Murgas, president of the Asociación Colombiana de Gas Natural (Naturgas), delivered a clear-eyed assessment of Colombia’s gas supply crisis that cuts against the government’s preferred framing: the country’s problem is not a shortage of gas in the ground but a persistent failure to build the political and institutional consensus needed to get it out.

Ecopetrol assumed direct operation of the gas processing plant at the Gibraltar field on April 1, 2026, following the expiry of a 15-year BOMT (Build, Operate, Maintain and Transfer) contract with Gas Gibraltar S.A.S.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy issued Resolution 40163 on March 27, 2026, authorizing thermal power plants to commercialize imported natural gas on the secondary market – a transitional measure valid for six months designed to unlock underutilized LNG import capacity and broaden gas supply at a moment of acute national shortage.

Senior officials from Trinidad and Tobago and Colombia met in late March 2026 to explore deepening bilateral energy cooperation, reflecting both countries’ strategic interest in regional energy security.