Colombia must act to avoid imminent gas shortage, industry group warns

Colombian natural gas association Naturgas has called for immediate action to guarantee supply amid fears of a looming shortage. 

According to data published by natural gas market administrator BMC, Colombia faces a deficit of 76.5BBTU/d (billion British thermal units a day) in 2025 and 189.5BBTU/d in 2026.

“The supply of local gas for firm sale will not be enough to cover the demand for natural gas in the country in the short and medium term,” Naturgas president Luz Stella Murgas said in a statement on Wednesday. 

Naturgas stressed that urgent policy and regulatory measures were needed to ramp up domestic supply and boost imports.

Its recommendations include greater contract flexibility, the approval of investments to expand the Barranquilla-Ballena pipeline and an overhaul of commercialization rules. 

In addition, the entity urged the government to introduce measures promoting investment in exploration and production while encouraging synergies with energy transition projects. 

“The decrease in [availability] reaffirms the need to prioritize public and regulatory policy decisions aimed at increasing the local supply of gas and enabling all external sources," Murgas said.

“We have insisted... that selling gas under the existing rules, in a tight market scenario like the current one, could lead to higher prices.”

In May, national hydrocarbons agency ANH said the lifespan of Colombia's natural gas reserves had fallen to 6.1 years, down from 7.2 years 12 months earlier.

According to energy ministry planning unit UPME, Colombia could face a natural gas deficit as soon as 2027 unless new sources of the fossil fuel are secured.

In its latest 15-year gas supply plan, UPME warned that Colombia needed to increase its natural gas import capacity by up to 680Mf3/d (million cubic feet a day) within six years to avoid potential shortages of the fossil fuel. 

It said additional supply could come via an expansion of the SPEC regasification terminal in Cartagena, new LNG import infrastructure on the Atlantic coast, piped imports from Venezuela and the long-mooted Pacific LNG project.