FARC continues attacks on Colombia's energy infrastructure

According to the Colombian military, the FARC is continuing its attacks on the country’s oil and energy infrastructure. FARC guerrillas destroyed an electricity pylon in Colombia’s Caqueta department, knocking out power to approximately half a million people. In addition, FARC rebels killed three police officers patrolling a stretch of the Pan-American Highway just a few miles away from the attack on the electricity pylon.

Colombian business journal La Republica reported that, despite the 20 attacks against Colombia’s oil infrastructure in 2015 and an oil spill of 14,000 barrels of oil, the oil production projections for Ecopetrol and Pacific Rubiales have remained the same. Despite its ability to absorb occasional attacks, Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol is worried that the attacks have not abated, and they will eventually put the company’s oil operations in jeopardy.

Oil production in the country for the month of May actually increased by 70,000 barrels per day over the same month last year, to a daily average of 1,025,000 barrels. Energy and Mines Minister Tomás González stressed in a press release that that “[The] country needs to continue producing more than 1 million barrels per day, on average, as it has been doing in the past eight months, to ensure that education and infrastructure projects can move forward.”

Despite the increase in oil production, Colombia’s economic growth actually slowed in the first quarter of 2015 due to a contraction in manufacturing and mining output. GDP grew by 2.8% year-on-year, down from a 3.5% growth for the fourth quarter of last year. Nonetheless, Colombia outperformed its neighbors Chile, Peru, and Brazil.