Joaquín Gutiérrez, chief executive of Colombia’s state-owned Ecopetrol, said the company is negotiating a 10-year agreement with PDVSA to buy natural gas from Venezuela.
This Friday, November 13, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) president Héctor Obregón said the state-owned energy company had agreed to export 65 million cubic feet per day of incremental gas production to Colombia, as planned under Venezuela’s offshore Perla project.
During a conference on the gas sector, Obregón explained that the gas would be exported through a pipeline that is currently being repaired. The plan is part of a recently signed agreement to ensure the initial supply of gas to Colombia.
Spain’s Repsol and Italy’s Eni, operators of the Perla project, said earlier this year that the increase in production—to a total of 645 million cubic feet per day—would be available by the first quarter of 2028, according to a Reuters report published by Yahoo Finance.
Ten-year agreement
Meanwhile, the chief executive of Colombia’s state oil company Ecopetrol, Joaquín Gutiérrez, said the company is negotiating a 10-year agreement to buy natural gas from Venezuela while exploring opportunities to expand its operations in Venezuelan territory.
The company is in talks with Pdvsa to buy gas at a price that would be “very competitive” and “well below” current market levels, Gutiérrez added on Friday during the presentation of the third-quarter financial results.
The negotiations are taking place as Colombia faces a growing natural gas supply shortfall, driven by falling domestic production, which has forced the country to rely increasingly on imports.
According to the industry association Campetrol, imported gas accounted for 37.1% of Colombian demand in September, the highest proportion recorded to date.
Meanwhile, marketed domestic gas production fell 12.9% during the first nine months of the year compared with the same period in 2025. Gutiérrez said the most immediate opportunity lies in the Antonio Ricaurte gas pipeline, which connects Venezuela and Colombia.
For the Colombian government, this project is strategic and in the national interest. The executive explained that Ecopetrol plans to ask PDVSA for the right to operate the 88-kilometer section of the pipeline located in Colombian territory. He also said that the company has already submitted an application to the U.S. authorities for the license required to operate this infrastructure, Bloomberg reports.