Venezuela Gas Pipeline Can Deliver 450 Million Cubic Feet a Day to Colombia
Key Facts
The Antonio Ricaurte pipeline linking Colombia and Venezuela has operating capacity of up to 450 million cubic feet of gas a day, according to an Ecopetrol statement published on November 4, 2026. That capacity is equivalent to about half of Colombia’s daily national consumption. The company plans to begin imports through the pipeline at an initial rate of 50 million cubic feet a day. That volume represents about 5% of national consumption, according to the company’s estimates for the project’s first phase. The pipeline’s return to service remains conditional on rehabilitating its infrastructure and obtaining the required license from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The pipeline runs 225 kilometers, including 88 kilometers in Colombia and 137 kilometers in Venezuela, and links the La Guajira region with the Lake Maracaibo region. The pipeline was inaugurated in 2007, according to Ecopetrol’s statement. The Colombian government has designated its restoration a project of national and strategic interest, aiming to coordinate the parties involved in its rehabilitation. Ecopetrol said importing gas through the pipeline could avoid liquefying the gas, shipping it by sea and then regasifying it. Achieving that would depend on rehabilitating the infrastructure and meeting the U.S. licensing requirement before operations begin.
The potential import route is based on an existing contractual relationship with the two Venezuelan companies PDVSA, according to Ecopetrol’s response published on the Colombian House of Representatives website. The gas supply and transport agreement dates to December 21, 2007, while the deliveries specified in it run through December 31, 2027. The company said the contract is in an equipment stabilization period during which neither party is required to deliver or receive gas. Outside that period, the contractual volumes are 150 gigawatt-hours a day, with a firmness level of 85%. Ecopetrol added that executing the contracts requires approval from the Office of Foreign Assets Control and rehabilitation of the Antonio Ricaurte pipeline, and that current U.S. executive orders are preventing their implementation.
The import plan comes as Colombia began importing gas on a large scale in December 2024, after four decades of self-sufficiency, according to the Associated Press. Ecopetrol says its plan to address declining gas production includes an initial phase of short- and medium-term solutions between 2026 and 2030. A second phase of offshore and onshore developments will follow during 2030–2040, according to the company’s third-quarter earnings report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In company news, Joaquín Gutiérrez Caballero was named permanent chief executive in September, effective September 28, 2026. Ecopetrol’s New York-listed shares, trading under the symbol EC, closed at $15.32 on the November 12, 2026, session.