The Antonio Ricaurte pipeline — the 225-kilometer infrastructure connecting Lake Maracaibo to Colombia’s La Guajira department — sits at the center of the Petro government’s most ambitious near-term gas supply strategy, but a cascade of technical, legal, and contractual complications make reactivation a far longer and more costly undertaking than official rhetoric suggests.
GeoPark, the oil and gas company now led by Felipe Bayón — the former Ecopetrol president — has suffered two consecutive failures to close transformative acquisitions in Colombia, leaving it without the scale it was seeking while Ecopetrol and Canadian rival Parex Resources step into the positions GeoPark had coveted.
Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy has confirmed a high-level meeting with U.S. government officials to advance an OFAC license that would allow Ecopetrol and ISA to reactivate bilateral energy projects with Venezuela.
The Petro government has formally ended gasoline subsidies paid through the national budget, while simultaneously defending an ongoing cycle of pump price reductions now complicated by a sharp spike in international crude prices driven by Middle East conflict.
A high-level Colombian delegation traveled to the Palacio de Miraflores in Caracas on March 14 after a planned border summit between President Gustavo Petro and Venezuelan acting president Delcy Rodríguez was cancelled for force majeure.
Ecopetrol outlined a 2026 investment plan ranging from CoP$22T to CoP$27T during its investor call following 2025 financial results, allocating 70% to traditional oil and gas operations and 30% to energy transition initiatives. It also confirmed it was “kicking the tires” on Canacol’s assets.
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