Warning signs for Colombia’s upstream

The clock is ticking to prevent years of crude production decline ending the country’s ability to meet its own energy needs

Months of national protests last year dealt another blow to Colombia’s ambitions of reviving its flagging crude production. The country’s National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) estimates that output averaged just 736,397bl/d in 2021, down from 779,119bl/d the year before, which was already an 11-year low. “There has not been a significant increase in proven resource volume in years,” says Sofia Forestieri, an upstream analyst at consultancy Rystad Energy. “Crude resources total 1.8bn bl and, at the current rate, [Colombia] will only be able to sustain production for another five or six years.” Latin America’s third-largest oil producer reached peak production in 2013, with output at 990,000bl/d,