Colombia, the world’s solely important oil producer to hitch a bloc of countries vowing to stop fossil fuels, is poised for an about face.
As President Gustavo Petro’s time period winds down, most outstanding candidates working to switch him are promising to place oil and fuel again on the forefront of the nation’s power coverage. Even average and center-left candidates are calling for Colombia to start out utilizing hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which Petro has pushed to make unlawful.
“If God gave us oil, coal and fuel — we’ll use oil, coal and fuel,” Claudia López, a former Bogotá mayor with a document of supporting progressive causes, mentioned in an X put up.
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Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, made world headlines in 2023 by saying the nation would signal the “fossil gasoline non-proliferation treaty” to finish oil, fuel and coal manufacturing. It made the one-time Marxist guerrilla fighter a star at worldwide local weather gatherings and introduced heft to the non-proliferation motion, which till then was made up of largely small island nations.
The trouble, nevertheless, backfired in Colombia. Petro’s refusal to permit new drilling contracts exacerbated a home fuel scarcity, forcing the nation to import gasoline at greater costs. Now with Petro’s recognition waning amid rising violence and a ballooning fiscal deficit, presidential hopefuls are distancing themselves from his insurance policies, together with power.
Throughout a latest occasion in Bogotá, 5 candidates held up “YES” indicators when requested if they might authorize fracking in Colombia. Just one, Petro’s former surroundings minister Susana Muhamad, mentioned no.
The shift in Colombia displays a broader retreat from the combat towards local weather change globally. Within the US, President Donald Trump is gutting Joe Biden’s local weather insurance policies, blocking renewable power tasks and withdrawing from the Paris local weather accord. And the European Union is struggling to move legal guidelines requiring additional formidable emissions cuts and strolling again most of the enterprise obligations designed to fulfill them.
It additionally comes as a number of Latin American nations, notably Guyana and Argentina, are aggressively increasing oil and fuel drilling. Even Brazil, host of subsequent month’s UN local weather convention and the area’s high oil producer, is pushing to considerably develop exploration, together with close to the mouth of the Amazon River the place environmentalists have tried to dam drilling for years.
Colombia, Latin America’s sixth largest oil producer, isn’t holding its election till Might. The following spherical of polls can’t be launched till subsequent month, and the end result stays unsure. But already, traders are positioning themselves for the power pendulum to swing again to grease and fuel.
Juan Manuel Galán, who was a part of a centrist coalition working towards Petro in 2022, opposed fracking over the past election. Now he’s for it.
“The controversy in Colombia is not about whether or not to make use of fracking or not,” Galán mentioned. “Fairly it’s about find out how to implement fracking that’s environmentally accountable.”
The catalytic cracking unit used for gasoline manufacturing on the Ecopetrol Barrancabermeja refinery in Barrancabermeja, Santander division, Colombia, on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. Photographer: Esteban Vanegas/Bloomberg
Earlier than Petro got here to energy, the nation’s power firm, Ecopetrol SA, had two pilot fracking tasks within the works with ExxonMobil Corp. The method — which makes use of water, chemical compounds and sand to crack oil and fuel from shale rock — has revolutionized manufacturing within the US and, extra lately, Argentina. Petro, who has referred to as combating local weather change a matter of “life or loss of life,” killed the hassle.
Oil and coal account for about half of Colombia’s exports, that means Colombia had quite a bit to doubtlessly lose by strolling away from fossil fuels. To mitigate that, Petro’s surroundings minister introduced throughout New York Local weather Week in 2024 that Colombia deliberate to take a position $40 billion to switch oil and coal export revenues, elevating cash with assist from the Inter-American Growth Financial institution. The trouble, nevertheless, hasn’t materialized, partially due to a scarcity of US assist after Trump’s election.
Whereas Colombia already confronted potential fuel shortages when Petro took workplace, his critics say the fracking tasks he scuttled might have helped deliver new sources of fuel on-line rapidly to keep away from a shortfall. The Colombian Affiliation of Geologists and Vitality Geophysicists estimates fracking might increase the nation’s fuel reserves by as much as 50 instances.
By early 2025, the nation’s fuel provide had grown tight sufficient that it was growing imports of liquefied shipments of the gasoline, driving up costs. This month, Ecopetrol was compelled to unlock a few of the fuel it makes use of for its refineries and manufacturing to keep away from having to ration provides to industrial customers whereas an import terminal was down for upkeep.
Petro, nevertheless, has held agency. In July, his surroundings minister re-introduced a invoice to make fracking unlawful — the administration’s sixth try. Critics say it’s time the nation moved on.
“Colombia is dealing with a actuality verify,” mentioned former mines and power minister Tomás González. “We now depend upon fuel imports, and that hurts folks’s pockets.”
At an power convention final month in Barrancabermeja, leaders of an oil labor union who as soon as condemned fracking have been calling for it to be put to make use of. Colombia should be able to resume fracking pilots as quickly as a brand new authorities is sworn in on Aug. 7, Cesar Loza, president of Unión Sindical Obrera, mentioned on the occasion.
“We’re dealing with a dilemma: will we proceed to import fuel or will we search for it in Colombia?” he mentioned. “We have to assure Colombia’s power self-sufficiency.”
Nonetheless, resistance stays. Exterior the occasion, Yuvelis Morales was amongst round 20 activists who’re a part of the “Colombia Freed from Fracking Alliance.” Fracking, she mentioned, threatens water for farming and fishing in her hometown of Puerto Wilches, the place the pilot tasks have been deliberate.
“We’ve had oil exploitation on this area for over a century,” she mentioned. “You go to the communities and what do you see? You see poverty, you see folks displaced by violence — and also you see air pollution.”
A ballot by the consultancy Arteaga Latam discovered assist stays low for fracking in Colombia’s oil-producing areas — however it’s rising. About 20% of these polled say they assist the method — double the proportion of 2019. If fracking is tied to discovering extra fuel, its approval ranking rises to 42%.
The mayor of Puerto Wilches, nevertheless, says fracking would increase tax income and jobs on the town. “We’re all going to learn,” Mayor José Elías Muñoz mentioned.
The evolving debate in Colombia is a reminder of the formidable challenges nations face when making an attempt to overtake century-old power programs, mentioned Luisa Palacios of Columbia College’s Heart on World Vitality Coverage.
“The swing again to fossil fuels is a shifting issue that’s associated to politics but additionally to fundamentals,” she mentioned in an interview. “In creating economies which have so many wants — fiscal wants, export wants and overseas foreign money wants — you can’t afford to not be pragmatic.”
To contact the writer of this story:
Andrea Jaramillo in Bogota at ajaramillo1@bloomberg.internet
