FARC renews attacks against Colombian oil infrastructure

Over the weekend, the FARC renewed its attacks against Colombia’s oil infrastructure. The leftist criminal and terrorist organization had turned to bombing Colombia’s oil pipelines and attacking refineries and oil workers as its primary means of fighting the Colombian government. These attacks depressed Colombian oil production and were much easier to carry out than high-profile bombings in Colombia’s major cities.

However, the FARC has been negotiating a peace agreement with the Colombian government, and during the negotiations, it had significantly decreased the number of its attacks against the country’s oil infrastructure. In recent weeks though, the talks have been severely threatened by an outbreak of new violence between the FARC and the Colombian military, and it appears that the moratorium on attacks against Colombian oil pipelines has also been broken.

This most recent attack occurred in the southern department of Putumayo, when early Sunday morning, the FARC simultaneously bombed the San Miguel-Orito pipeline and the Loro Ocho oilfield, and harried the troops guarding the Yurilla and Sibundoy oil fields.

Late last week three Colombian soldiers were killed by the FARC while they were protecting oil fields in the department of Arauca in northeast Colombia. Three FARC guerrillas were also killed in the fighting, and were found wearing army uniforms. The Colombian military said in a press release that it believes that the FARC was ready an attack against an oil complex in the area.

The resumption of attacks against Colombia’s oil infrastructure is a worrying development for the country’s government and its oil sector. Colombia is doing everything it can to keep oil production high to compensate for low oil prices, but FARC attacks against the country’s oil pipelines might prevent it from keeping its average oil production above the 1 million bpd threshold.