The Ministry of Mines and Energy used its July 9 four-year management balance to deliver a pointed political message to the incoming De la Espriella administration: suspending the energy sector transition handover process at the precise moment Colombia is preparing for an El Niño episode is, in the ministry’s words, “profoundly irresponsible.”
Tomás de la Calle is back, this time looking at the country’s declining gas reserves and wondering about the UPME’s role in getting us to here … and getting us back to self-sufficiency.
President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella has confirmed ten of his ministers with just under a month until his August 7th inauguration, in a process that Cambio Colombia tracked across multiple rounds of announcements.
Luz Stella Murgas, president of the natural gas industry association Naturgas, used a detailed interview published in El Tiempo on July 6 to map what she called a “critical juncture” in the Colombian gas sector and to set out the five priorities she says cannot wait beyond the first hundred days of the De la Espriella administration.
Fabio Arjona Hincapié – a marine biologist, former vice-minister of Environment under Ernesto Samper, and until recently director of Conservación Internacional Colombia – was confirmed as de la Espriella’s minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development portfolio that will sit at the intersection of the new government’s hydrocarbons expansion agenda and its stated commitment to environmental protection.
Colombia’s energy regulator CREG released an infographic guide explaining how it will manage the continuity of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) public distribution service under its PERP/PC regulatory project framework, a process designed to ensure that LPG infrastructure remains operational when existing operators cannot or will not continue executing a project.
The incoming de la Espriella government’s stated ambition to expand oil and gas production is the easy part of its energy agenda — the hard part is bridging the supply gap before new production arrives.
Colombia’s energy regulator CREG took a concrete step toward regulating hydrogen injection into the national gas transport network on June 24, hosting a sector workshop and publishing two technical studies on the economics and engineering of hydrogen-natural gas blending (H2+CH4) in the Sistema Nacional de Transporte (SNT).
With Rodrigo Lara Restrepo confirmed as Interior Minister on June 26 – the first official appointment of Abelardo de la Espriella’s incoming government – attention turns to the portfolios that matter most for energy investors, where the picture remains considerably less settled. Two names have surfaced specifically for Mines and Energy.
Luz Stella Murgas, president of the Colombian Natural Gas Association Naturgas, issued a sharp public warning on June 26 in response to the ANH’s IRR 2025 report, calling on the incoming De la Espriella administration to accelerate investment decisions and unblock stalled gas projects without delay.
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