By Oliver Griffin
BOGOTA (Reuters) -A ruling from a Colombian court that ordered the suspension of work at a major offshore natural gas well is a threat to the country’s energy security, industry groups the Colombian Petroleum Association (ACP) and Naturgas said on Monday.
In a court order dated Sept. 11, a judge said activities at well Uchuva-2, on the Tayrona block in Colombia’s Caribbean, must stop after the companies failed to properly consult a local Indigenous community about the operation.
“We cannot allow them to turn the country off with arbitrary decisions,” ACP president Frank Pearl said in a press conference alongside Naturgas president Luz Stella Murgas.
The Uchuva-2 well is an important hope for Colombia’s dwindling gas reserves, which have sparked fears over the country’s long-term energy self-sufficiency. In May, the government’s National Hydrocarbons Association reported Colombia’s gas reserves closed 2023 at 2.4 trillion cubic feet, equivalent to 6.1 years’ consumption.
The potential reserves at Uchuva-2 are equivalent to 2.5 times Colombia’s current reserves, Murgas said.
The Tayrona block is owned by Colombia’s majority state-owned energy company Ecopetrol, which has a 55.6% stake, and Brazil’s Petrobras, which is the block operator and holds the remaining 44.4%.
The ruling represents the latest chapter in Colombia’s long history of tensions between successive governments and Indigenous groups over energy projects, which the communities often say infringe on their rights or threaten their way of life.
Both Pearl and Murgas said the well was found to not infringe on communities’ rights after “competent authorities” previously confirmed the block’s area of influence did not clash with Indigenous groups’ lands.
“Delaying this project will mean that we will have to be forced to import natural gas subject to the volatility of international markets for longer,” Murgas said.
(Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle and Marguerita Choy)
