Colombia’s Oil and Gas Reserves Aid Nervous

Matthew Smith

As Oilprice’s South The United States correspondent, I quilt Colombia (where I are truly residing), Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Guyana, Suriname and Uruguay. I…

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• Colombia’s 1P oil reserves fell on the subject of 1% to good over 2 billion barrels in 2025, whereas 1P pure gas reserves plunged 17% to 1.7 trillion cubic ft.
• Oil manufacturing dropped to a multiyear low of 724,910 barrels per day in April 2026, the weakest exhibiting since June 2021.
• Falling domestic gas output and a looming El Niño drought are pushing Colombia toward costlier LNG imports and deeper power insecurity.

For a decade, Colombia’s economically fundamental oil alternate has been caught in a loss of life spiral. A aggregate of sharply weaker oil costs, rising geopolitical be troubled and anti-petroleum alternate reforms implemented by Colombia’s first leftist president Gustavo Petro deterred funding, inflicting the operational tempo to converse no. Essentially the most fundamental advise weighing carefully on the oil patch’s outlook is a dire lack of confirmed petroleum reserves. These are the outcome of an absence of spending on wildcat drilling and a uncomfortable exploration success charge.

After a lengthy lengthen, Colombia’s regulatory authority, the Nationwide Hydrocarbons Company (ANH), released the 2025 document on the Andean nation’s oil reserves. Since the head of the 2020 COVID pandemic, Colombia’s confirmed oil and pure gas reserves possess remained flat. This pattern is evident from the 2025 reserve document, where confirmed or 1P oil reserves totaled good over 2 billion barrels, a on the subject of 1% lower when compared to a three hundred and sixty five days earlier. Despite that descend, the productive lifetime of Colombia’s 1P reserves grew from 7.2 years for 2024 to 7.6 years.

Both confirmed and doable (2P) as well to proved, conceivable and doable (3P) reserves also declined, falling 2% and 3% three hundred and sixty five days over three hundred and sixty five days to 2.56 billion barrels and 2.99 billion barrels, respectively. The realistic lift within the productive lifetime of 1P reserves took place for one straightforward motive: Colombia’s oil manufacturing is in decline, falling to a multiyear low of 724,910 barrels per day for April 2026. Certainly, that number used to be the lowest output since June 2021, when the Andean nation lifted 694,151 barrels day-to-day.

The unprecedented majority of Colombia’s 1P reserves, 74%, would per chance be found within the Llanos Basin with 15.3% within the Center Magdalena Valley and 3.8% positioned within the Larger Magdalena Valley. The growing older Rubiales self-discipline within the Llanos Basin is the greatest oilfield on the root of confirmed reserves and remains Colombia’s most productive petroleum acreage. For the three hundred and sixty five days-to-date, ANH files shows 11.3 million barrels of oil possess been lifted from the Rubiales self-discipline, which is on the subject of double that of the Castilla self-discipline, also positioned within the Llanos Basin.

Colombia’s pure gas reserves also fell sharply throughout 2025. The ANH document shows 1P pure gas reserves plummeted by a whopping 17% three hundred and sixty five days over three hundred and sixty five days to 1.7 trillion cubic ft. In the intervening time, 2P reserves plunged 11% to 2.38 trillion cubic ft and 3P fell 8% to three trillion cubic ft.

Be pleased petroleum manufacturing, Colombia’s pure gas output continues to spiral lower. April 2026 output plunged 14% three hundred and sixty five days over three hundred and sixty five days to 694 million cubic ft day-to-day, the lowest manufacturing volume since January 2026. It is also a caring 36% no longer as a lot as the identical period a decade earlier, when Colombia pumped 1.08 billion cubic ft of pure gas day-to-day.

This is an extremely caring construction with Colombia on the cusp of a excessive power crisis with the latest El Niño climate phenomenon poised to wreak havoc on hydro-electricity generation, on which the nation is carefully dependent. You peek, hydro crops generate around 65% of all electricity produced in Colombia. Those facilities are counting on high water phases to withhold manufacturing. When water phases plummet ensuing from excessive drought, which is anticipated to happen in Colombia throughout the last half of of 2026, electricity output plunges.

For those causes, Bogota is forced to utilize thermal power crops, most of which would per chance be gas-fired. This is accountable for higher request-facet pressures for the fossil gasoline, which, alongside with declining domestic manufacturing as well to reserves, is using ever higher imports of pure gas. This is amplified by Petro’s push to carve aid greenhouse gas emissions by decommissioning Colombia’s growing older fleet of coal-fired crops and changing them with gas-powered facilities.

As a end result, costly liquefied pure gas (LNG) imports proceed to hover, accounting for 17% of the fossil gasoline consumed in Colombia. That can surge to 25% throughout 2026, sharply impacting the economy as pure gas is a very fundamental industrial and family gasoline. Colombia’s rising dependence on pure gas imports is at the aid of the intriguing uptick in inflation, which is using a label-of-residing crisis whereas putting structural rigidity on the nation’s steadiness of payments at a time of fiscal weak point.

The decline of Colombia’s oil and pure gas reserves represents a excessive threat to a fragile economy. This stands in stark disagreement to a decade ago, when Colombia produced passable pure gas to be self-passable and used to be a significant gain oil exporter. The parlous train of Colombia’s oil patch, in conjunction with hydrocarbon output being caught in a loss of life spiral and falling confirmed reserves, has worsened thanks to Petro’s power insurance policies. A aggregate of ceasing to advise unusual exploration and manufacturing contracts, frequent tax hikes and makes an are trying to ban fracking are all deterring funding.

Colombia’s noteworthy regulatory ambiance and rising violence in far off oil-producing regions are disrupting operations and discouraging funding. Consequently, many intermediate drillers and significant oil firms slashed spending, with some, in conjunction with Exxon, exiting the nation fully. Without regulatory reform and lower taxes, a sustained restoration in hydrocarbon reserves and manufacturing seems to be no longer doubtless. Many hope president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella, who takes train of job on August 7, 2026, will ship the fundamental modifications and revive Colombia’s oil alternate.

By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com

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