Let's change course: ACP proposes measures to stop the country's energy countdown

• There are about 70 wells left to explore between 2026 and 2030; without new incentives for exploration, this activity would come to an end in the country in the medium term. In 2025, exploratory investment would fall by 18%, reaching its lowest level in the last four years.
• Investment in production would grow by 15% in 2025, focusing on maintaining production from mature fields. Without new explorations, this boost would be temporary and increasingly costly.
• Social conflict in the regions where operations are conducted increased by 151% in 2024, impacting the development of projects and their contributions to the territories and the country's energy security.
• The measures proposed by the ACP aim to reverse the exploratory decline, increase production, and ensure energy self-sufficiency, based on investment, competitiveness, and the addition of sources.

Bogotá, D.C. May 29, 2025. The Colombian Association of Oil and Gas (ACP) presented the annual economic report ‘Investment Trends in Oil and Gas Exploration and Production in Colombia 2024 and Perspectives 2025: a strategic sector in critical condition.’ This analysis reveals concerning signs about the depletion of exploratory activity if the course is not changed, the deterioration of the operational environment, and an increasing risk to energy security, fiscal stability, and the well-being of Colombian households. In light of this scenario, the guild proposes measures to recover the competitiveness and energy self-sufficiency of the country.

Exploration: countdown activity

The report, based on official data and from companies representing 95% of national oil production and 96% of natural gas production, warns that only about 70 exploratory wells are contractually committed to be drilled between 2026 and 2030. If no boosting measures are taken, Colombia will exhaust its exploratory activity by the end of this decade, which would put the country in a critical situation, with no new discoveries to guarantee the replenishment of reserves or a solid basis for future energy sustainability.

In 2025, investment in exploration would fall by 18%, its lowest level in the last four years. This reduction occurs in a context where proven gas reserves have fallen by 57% in the last ten years and an accelerated decline in oil production is anticipated starting in 2027.

Production: more investment to maintain volumes

While investment in production would grow by 15% in 2025, this boost will be temporary if new projects are not developed. For 2025, oil production is estimated to be between 760 and 770 thousand barrels per day (kbpd), similar to the 772 kbpd of 2024. And in gas, for 2025, a marketed production of national gas of 905 million cubic feet per day (MPCD), compared to 958 MPCD of 2024.

“Today, more investment is required to produce the same amount of oil, due to the natural depletion of fields and the complexity of the operational environment, and in gas, we are not managing to increase production or replenish reserves, this is a double challenge for energy self-sufficiency,”, said Frank Pearl, president of the ACP.

Territorial environment and fiscal pressure

In 2024, blockades to sector operations increased by 151%, in an environment of growing social conflict and deterioration of public order in the regions where operations are conducted, affecting both the development of projects and their contributions to the territories and the country's energy security.

This situation is compounded by the projected fiscal deficit of $40 billion as a consequence of the reduction in oil production in the medium term, the possible increase of between 15% and 46% in gas tariffs if half of the demand is imported due to lack of new supply, and the identified need to increase crude oil imports to maintain the operation of refineries, mainly in the interior of the country, which would raise the cost of liquid fuel production.

Proposed measures: conditions to invest and produce

The ACP proposes a series of measures to reactivate the sector that combine fiscal and regulatory stability, viability for key projects, and a boost to new investment opportunities.

1. Operational viability:
2. Optimization of prior consultations with institutional support in operations.
3. Stability in environmental requirements.
4. State coordination to manage conflict and ensure public order.
5. Legal, fiscal security, and investor confidence:
6. Define a competitive tax burden for the sector.
7. Reduce the self-withholding rate of gas in a deficit scenario like the current one.
8. Technical tables for the new telemetry resolution of the ANH.
9. Promotion of gas projects and offshore development:
10. Accompany and enable projects ensuring their socio-environmental procedures.
11. Prioritization of 116 prior consultations for the construction of the submarine gas pipeline.
12. Issuance of environmental license for submarine and land infrastructure.
13. Optimization of the capacity of the gas transportation system (execution of the Natural Gas Supply Plan works and remuneration methodology).
14. Operational efficiency:
15. Issuance of the new tariff methodology for transportation by pipelines that reflects depreciated replacement costs.
16. Postponement of the entry into force (June 3) of the SICETAC for liquid cargo.
17. Stimulus for incremental production:
18. Issuance of the Resolution of the Ministry of Mines and Energy with incentives for enhanced recovery and incremental production.
19. Extension of the production period of existing contracts and return to the principle of autonomy of the will of the parties (Agreement 03 of the ANH of 2025)
20. Addition of energy sources:
21. Ensure complementarity between renewables and conventional sources.
22. Graduality in the transition.
23. Competitiveness to drive exploration and production: permanent round of area allocation by private initiative.
24. Unconventional Reservoirs: reactivation of project development taking advantage of Colombia's robust current regulatory framework that allows monitoring and mitigating environmental risks.

“Let’s change course. The country needs technical decisions that ensure investment, development, and energy supply. This is an invitation to build, together: Government, Congress, local authorities, communities, and the private sector, the roadmap for energy security, fiscal stability, and the well-being of millions of households,”, concluded the president of ACP.

Presentation:

Economic Report:

Economic report - E&P Investment Trends in oil and gas 2024 and outlook 2025