News and AnalysIs for

Ecopetrol published its 2024 results on March 14^th – almost the Ides of March – showing yet another decline in earnings (nearly 8%). The Colombian press was full of “sturm und drang” about the sorry state of the National Treasure and anticipating a rocky time at the upcoming shareholders’ general assembly over the lowered dividend. Much as we criticize the NOC strategically, we do not find this financial handwringing entirely fair.

For years, our editorial point of view was that importing gas was an unacceptable and unnecessary loss of energy sovereignty. We opposed building a second regas facility on the Pacific coast saying that the resources should be directed to encouraging domestic gas development. But, now, pragmatism means we have to modify our position.

The ANH has published detailed gas production results for 2024 and we can now see who the “winners and losers” were.  We also look at MinEnergia’s recent statements that “there is enough gas”, with no need for imports.

Looking over the events we collected for our database of peace process news items, we concluded that a lot happened in February… but nothing has changed.

The ANH has published the detailed results for oil and gas for 2024 so it’s time to dissect what happened. Oil production was down less than 1%. We might have expected worse.

So far six ministers have resigned irrevocably from President Gustavo Petro’s cabinet, including his combative MinAmbiente Susana Mohamad since the first of February after three left in January. The rest have been asked to resign pro forma so the president can create a new cabinet. Why and where are we going?

We had planned to write about gas prices this week anyway but then on Friday, February 7^th, one of the country’s biggest gas distributors, Vanti, said prices in some areas would have to go up by 36%. That got everyone’s attention

January ended with the above quote from the ELN’s supreme commander, alias Antonio Garcia. That’s how the second half of the month felt with over 100 casualties in Catatumbo and over 50,000 civilians displaced by the fighting.

While individual company results may differ, Colombia-focused stocks as a group and Ecopetrol in particular have suffered since the arrival of Gustavo Petro as president.

Last week we wrote our annual Fearless Forecasts article which focuses on the quantitative. But we also talk about the policy environment, really about politics and that proves especially important in the runup to elections in 2026. Readers ask us frequently about what comes next after August 7^th, 2026. We realized that the topic deserved an analysis of its own.