The real cost of FARC's attacks on Colombia's oil infrastructure

General Henry Torres, the commander of the Colombian Army in southwest Colombia, told El Pais in an interview that the FARC no longer has military capacity; instead it just has terrorist capacity. The general’s assessment carries significant weight, as he has the command in the part of Colombia that has received the brunt of recent FARC attacks. General Torres stressed that the FARC is not some weak, ragtag bunch of militants, warning that the group still has ability to kill civilians and soldiers.

Neither will residents in southwestern Colombia make the mistake of doubting FARC’s strength. Over the weekend, the FARC destroyed an electricity transmission tower outside Barbacoas in the Nariño department. The attack cut power to some 260,000 people living in the Colombian cities of Magui, Roberto Payan, Barbacoas, Ricaurte, and Tumaco.

Nonetheless, the Colombian military did successfully thwart a FARC attack against the country’s oil infrastructure over the weekend. The FARC had installed 27 kg of explosives on the San Miguel-Orito oil pipeline, but the military was able to deactivate and remove them before they could do any damage.

Just last year alone, Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol lost approximately 13,000 barrels of oil due to FARC attacks. Colombian daily El Espectador crunched the numbers, calculating that the lost oil production resulted in $430 million in lost revenues for Ecopetrol.

In addition to the lost revenue, the attacks also carry very real, immediate costs. The damage to the infrastructure must be repaired, and it carries a price. In 2014, more than 142 million pesos were spent on repairs caused by 136 different terrorist attacks, while just two years ago only 40 million pesos were spent on repairs.