Colombia Edges Back Toward Fracking as a 2025 Gas Crunch Tests Its Green Ambitions

Colombia promised to lead on climate. Then 2025 delivered a hard lesson in energy math. Domestic gas ran tight just as the country’s only LNG import terminal in Cartagena suffered an outage.

To avoid rationing factories, state oil firm Ecopetrol cut what it burns itself and pushed extra gas into the market. For households and industry, it was a glimpse of what scarcity looks like: higher prices, fragile supply, little room for error.

That shock reopened a fight the government thought it had settled. President Gustavo Petro halted two fracking pilots and championed a fossil-fuel “non-proliferation” push.

Yet there is still no nationwide legal ban. Bills to prohibit fracking have been introduced and reintroduced; courts suspended specific pilot permits; one international partner walked away.

Meanwhile, proven gas reserves are measured in single-digit years, offshore finds have not delivered volumes at scale, and many onshore fields are aging.

The politics have shifted from slogans to trade-offs. Some national figures who once rejected fracking now say Colombia should at least test it under strict water and seismic rules.

Parts of the oil workers’ union agree, arguing that doing nothing simply imports more expensive gas. In places like Puerto Wilches—the heart of the proposed pilots—mayors talk up jobs and tax revenue, while local activists warn about aquifers, fisheries, and social conflict.

Both sides are real; both live with the consequences. The story behind the story is regional and financial. Argentina’s shale boom is minting new output and export plans.

Brazil is pushing into frontier offshore basins. Guyana keeps scaling up. Investors see those trajectories when deciding where to place capital. At home, oil, gas, and coal still anchor exports and the budget; a messy transition risks the peso and growth.

In simple terms: Colombia needs dependable gas while it builds more renewables. The immediate choice is not “planet or profits,” but whether to secure supply with more LNG and conventional drilling—or to run tightly monitored fracking pilots to learn what’s in the rock.

Either path demands clear oversight, credible community benefits, and honesty about costs. The country’s climate credibility will hinge on how, not whether, it balances those realities.