Colombia, torn by conflict, faces an energy crisis of gigantic proportions. Decades of mismanagement and insecurity, coupled with radical changes in energy policy by Gustavo Petro, the first leftist president in Colombia’s history, are wreaking havoc on the country’s natural gas reserves and production. This is making the Andean country increasingly reliant on expensive natural gas imports, while threatening the stability of Colombia’s energy grid and risking critical energy shortages. There is no sign of an easy solution for a country struggling under the weight of a growing fiscal crisis.
Colombia’s proven natural gas reserves are declining. Since 2012, when those reserves reached a multi-year high of 5.7 trillion cubic feet, they have fallen every year except 2021. By 2024, Colombia’s natural gas reserves stood at just over two trillion cubic feet, almost a third of what they were in 2012, with a production life of just 5.9 years. This is particularly worrying because, during the same period in which reserves decreased, fuel consumption increased considerably.
Source: National Hydrocarbons Agency of Colombia (ANH).
Natural gas is a crucial fuel for power plants and homes in Colombia, which use it for heating and cooking. Until recently, when the Andean country’s self-sufficiency ended, natural gas was a very affordable fuel for households in a nation where about a third of the population lives in poverty. Colombia is becoming increasingly dependent on electricity generation from natural gas. While the Andean country has long relied on hydropower, which provides around 60% of Colombia’s electricity, there is a growing reliance on gas-fired plants. Rising demand for electricity, coupled with intermittent and sustained declines in hydroelectric production due to poor hydrology, increased the need to generate power from traditional thermal plants.
This, along with President Petro’s policy of moving Colombia away from fossil fuels, is behind the plan to replace Colombia’s fleet of obsolete and inefficient coal-fired plants. These are being progressively replaced by facilities powered by natural gas through renovations or the construction of new plants. Electricity shortages caused by changes in water levels, combined with increased demand and overloaded grid infrastructure, are responsible for blackouts and brownouts in major towns and cities in Colombia. Those events are putting pressure on limited natural gas supplies, particularly with thermal facilities responsible for generating more than a fifth of Colombia’s electricity.
For these reasons, demand for natural gas is far outstripping supply. Domestic fossil fuel production has fallen sharply since reaching a multi-year high of 1.1 billion cubic feet per day in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from the national hydrocarbons regulator, ANH, show that by December 2025, only 693 million cubic feet of natural gas were extracted in Colombia. That figure is a whopping 9% less than in November 2025 and a whopping 23% less than a year earlier.
Source: National Hydrocarbons Agency of Colombia (ANH).
A key factor in this sharp decline in Colombia’s natural gas production is the increasing decline rates in mature fields. You see, a considerable portion of the fossil fuel extracted in the Andean country is associated gas, a byproduct of oil production. The increasing volume of mature fields in Colombia, where decline rates are peaking, means drillers are being forced to implement improved oil recovery methods such as gasflooding and waterflooding techniques.
One of the most cost-effective enhanced recovery practices is to reinject natural gas extracted from oil wells into underlying reservoirs to increase pressure and reduce viscosity, making it easier to extract the oil. It is estimated that between 50% and 80% of all the associated gas produced in Colombia is reinjected for these reasons. This is weighing on national volumes of commercially available natural gas, and Bogotá is seeking commitments from drillers to release associated natural gas for commercialization.
The lack of major natural gas discoveries, combined with declining exploration and falling investment in Colombia’s hydrocarbon sector, are other key factors contributing to the sharp decline in production and reserves. The policies introduced by Petro, in particular the cessation of awarding new exploration and production contracts, as well as the increase in taxes on extractive industries, are responsible for the sharp decline in drilling activities. As a result, many foreign energy companies are reducing their operational footprint and even withdrawing from Colombia due to the impact of those policies on profitability.
For these reasons, Bogotá is increasing costly imports of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which began in 2016, to cover the shortfall. By 2024, Colombia was importing record volumes of LPG, setting both monthly and annual record highs. The Andean country imported 94.33 billion cubic feet (BCF) that year, or almost triple the 36.3 BCF it received a year before. According to Bloomberg, those volumes continue to grow. The news agency recently reported that during 2025, Colombia imported 3.1 million metric tons or 153.93 BCF of LPG, or 1.6 times more than a year earlier.
That sharp rebound occurred despite the end of the El Niño climate phenomenon in 2024, which caused a major drought and was responsible for a sharp reduction in hydroelectric generation due to a significant decrease in water flows. This forced Bogotá to turn on gas-fired power plants to make up for the electricity shortfall, which threatened the stability of the country’s grid. The amount of LPG Colombia imports is forecast to increase further as the gap between growing demand and falling domestic supply widens.
Even the Sirius natural gas project, located in the Andean country’s territorial waters in the Caribbean, long touted as a solution to declining reserves and production, is unable to fill the supply gap. Recent forecasts expect supply constraints to so severely affect the amount of natural gas available in Colombia that the deficit will widen to 56% of demand by 2029, if new domestic sources of fossil fuel are not brought online. Increasing dependence on expensive LPG imports is causing natural gas prices to skyrocket, impacting an already fragile economy.
According to government data, several major cities, including Colombia’s capital Bogotá, experienced natural gas price inflation higher than the national average. Colombia’s capital, although not the worst affected, saw a worrying increase in natural gas prices of 16.98% in the December 2025 consumer price index. There are fears that increasing dependence on imported natural gas will drive up prices, impacting economic activity and households, which are already suffering from a spiraling cost of living.
The national oil company Ecopetrol has pinned its hopes on the discovery of Sirius natural gas in the Guajira Basin, located in the Caribbean Sea in front of the port city of Santa Marta. The gas field is located in the GUA OFF 0 Block, former Tayrona Block, where Ecopetrol controls 55.6% and Brazil’s national oil company, Petrobras, which is the operator, has 44.4%. The project, which targets reservoirs containing 6 billion cubic feet of natural gas, will cost $5 billion. The Sirius gas field will come online in 2030. The block is believed to contain six trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which, if accurate, will significantly increase Colombia’s natural gas reserves and production.
By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com
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