Colombia Lists Venezuela Gas Pipeline Among Strategic Projects With Capacity of 450 Million Cubic Feet
Key Facts
The Colombian government has included the restoration of the Antonio Ricaurte pipeline with Venezuela among projects of national and strategic interest, a step that gives the project government priority and coordinates the efforts of relevant agencies through the vice president, according to an Ecopetrol statement published on November 4, 2026. The company says the pipeline, which connects the La Guajira region with the Lake Maracaibo region, could have a maximum operating capacity of 450 million cubic feet per day, or about half of national daily consumption. The initial plan is more modest: the first phase targets imports of 50 million cubic feet per day, equivalent to about 5% of national consumption. The move comes as Colombia faces falling domestic gas production and growing reliance on imports. Including the project on the list of priorities does not mean gas flows will begin immediately, as the company has tied operations to completing rehabilitation work and obtaining the required license from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The pipeline stretches 225 kilometers, including 88 kilometers in Colombia and 137 kilometers in Venezuela, and opened in 2007, according to Ecopetrol data. It was shut down in 2019 before the activation of the second phase, which was intended to transport gas from Venezuela to Colombia, according to Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy. This background puts infrastructure rehabilitation at the center of the project’s practical timeline, alongside transit arrangements between the two countries. Carrying out pipe replacement work also requires reactivating the environmental license that has been suspended since 2019, according to the ministry. The head of the environmental licensing authority said restoring the pipeline along its original route should not change the approved technical conditions and could be treated as a minor environmental modification. These steps remain prerequisites for operations, rather than merely accompanying procedures.
U.S. Energy Information Administration figures show the decline in domestic supplies: average annual marketed production fell from 1,070 million cubic feet per day in 2022 to 772 million in 2025, then averaged 673 million between January and August 2026. Meanwhile, liquefied natural gas imports reached a record equivalent to 31% of monthly supplies in July 2026. Proven reserves fell 39% between 2022 and 2025 to 1.7 trillion cubic feet. These indicators point to mounting pressure on Colombia’s gas balance, the backdrop to the government’s effort to restore a pipeline supply route. Colombia returned to large-scale gas imports in December 2024 after four decades of self-sufficiency, according to the Associated Press. Reuters reported twice in November that imports had risen to nearly 40% and then 41% of domestic consumption, warning that the deficit could worsen because of El Niño.
Ecopetrol says shipping gas requires liquefying it before transport and regasifying it on arrival, two stages that raise its final cost. Transport by pipeline could avoid these processes and their costs, but the company has not specified the expected savings. This means the project’s economic rationale is tied to changing the supply route and the mode of transport, while the actual cost of rehabilitation and operations remains unspecified in the information released. The gap between the pipeline’s maximum technical capacity of 450 million cubic feet per day and the first-phase plan of 50 million also shows that initial use would represent a limited share of its capacity. The company gave no specific start date in its statement and tied the pipeline’s entry into service to completion of rehabilitation and the U.S. license. In March 2026, Colombia said it was seeking a U.S. license to invest in Venezuelan energy projects, while Ecopetrol was in contact with U.S. officials over regulatory requirements, according to the Associated Press.
In the market, Ecopetrol shares, traded under the ticker EC, closed at $15.55 on November 6, 2026, according to EL7 data. No figure that can be relied upon for the stock’s session high is available in the verified open data. Monitoring of the project remains tied to progress on rehabilitation work and reactivation of the environmental license, as well as securing approval from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control. Once those conditions are met, the pace of implementation will determine how much the pipeline can actually add to supplies, compared with the announced first-phase plan. Ecopetrol’s statement gave no date for the start of gas flows or timeline for completing these requirements.