A post-election analysis by Arteaga Latam of Colombia’s May 31 first-round presidential vote finds that the country’s 131 oil- and gas-producing municipalities delivered nearly the entire national margin for Abelardo de la Espriella over Iván Cepeda — and that those same territories could again prove decisive in Sunday’s runoff.
Deutsche Bank and Corficolombiana both published assessments on June 12 framing the same basic question ahead of Colombia’s June 21 presidential runoff: what comes after the vote, and how durable will any initial market optimism prove to be?
Pacto Histórico presidential candidate Iván Cepeda used a June 10 interview on Caracol Radio’s 6AM W with Julio Sánchez Cristo to lay out his position on Ecopetrol, the energy transition, and the future of hydrocarbon policy under a possible Cepeda government.
The Ministry of Mines and Energy formally issued a resolution on June 13 activating a preventive supply protection plan for the scheduled maintenance of the SPEC LNG regasification terminal in Cartagena, set to run from July 30 to August 3, 2026.
Presidential candidate Abelardo De la Espriella released a gas policy document on June 11 outlining his administration’s approach to resolving Colombia’s looming supply deficit, with vice-presidential candidate and former minister José Manuel Restrepo serving as the technical face of the proposal.
Elevated Brent crude prices driven by sustained Middle East tensions are handing Colombia a significant fiscal windfall in 2026.
Colombia’s oil and gas industry association, the ACP, has issued a public alert over a work stoppage that began June 5 at production fields in Puerto Gaitán, Meta, organized by members of the metalworking trades.
The Petro administration has designated 1.5 million hectares of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta as a Renewable Natural Resources Reserve, barring new mining concessions and hydrocarbon exploration and production contracts across the entire area.
Foreign direct investment in Colombia’s oil sector fell more than 7% year-on-year in Q1 2026, reaching US$589M against US$634M in the same period of 2025, according to Banco de la República data.
If Abelardo De la Espriella wins the June 21 runoff, Colombia’s upstream sector should expect an immediate and deliberate reversal of the Petro administration’s anti-hydrocarbon posture.
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