The Bicentenario crude oil pipeline in Colombia has been shut down following an explosion that state oil company Ecopetrol said was caused by a guerrilla attack.
Per a Reuters report citing the company, the Bicentenario pipeline was hit by the National Liberation Army. Reuters notes the NLA is the largest guerrilla organization in Colombia and is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.
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Guerilla groups have recently stepped up their attacks on oil pipelines in Colombia. Last year, at one point Ecopetrol reported as many as five attacks on two pipelines: Bicentenario and Cano Limon-Covenas. The government deployed the army to the pipelines to protect Ecopetrol staff that was repairing the infrastructure.
Colombia has been struggling to reverse a decline in oil production over the past five years and now has an ambition to boost its daily average to over 1 million barrels, from around 800,000 barrels in 2024. State oil company Ecopetrol is contributing to the output increase through enhanced oil recovery techniques, improving extraction volumes from reservoirs. Colombia’s 2024 oil recovery rate averaged 27 percent, energy minister Andres Camacho said last May.
At the same time, the current government has ambitious plans for wind and solar growth as it seeks to reduce Colombia’s dependence on oil, gas, and coal revenues. Hydrocarbons, however, remain a major contributor to budget revenues and the most likely source of transition money, given the price tag of the government’s green plan is $40 billion.
Back in 2022, when he came to power, Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro pledged to shift Colombia’s economy away from oil, coal, and gas, in favour of lower-carbon energy alternatives. At the 2023 COP28, Petro became the first leader of a large energy producer to vow phasing out hydrocarbons endorsing a call for something called a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. He also suspended the issuance of new oil and gas licenses in Colombia.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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