Colombia’s One Gas Terminal Is Already Promised to Three Power Plants

Energy

Key Facts

—The bottleneck. Colombia’s only import terminal, SPEC in Cartagena, is all but spoken for: about 450 of its 465 units of daily capacity are reserved for three power stations.

—The remainder. Only about 5% of the terminal is left for homes, shops and industry.

—The share. Imports covered about a third of consumption in early July, against under 3% in 2015-2023.

—The price. Cargoes for June to August were contracted at $18.39 per million British thermal units, up from $13.96.

—The premium. Colombian wholesale gas costs about three times the US benchmark price.

—The clock. Reserves cover 5.9 years of output, down from 14.1 years in 2007.

Colombia gas imports now cover about a third of what the country burns, and everyone knows the safety net is a single terminal at Cartagena. Almost nobody has read the government report explaining that the net is already spoken for.

The utilities regulator published it in May. Its arithmetic is the most alarming sentence in Colombian energy this year.

Colombia gas imports run through one door, and it is nearly shut

The terminal, known as SPEC, can regasify four hundred and sixty-five units of gas a day in the local measure. According to the Superintendencia de Servicios Públicos, around four hundred and fifty of those are committed to backing three thermal power stations.

That leaves roughly twenty-five units for everybody else. Households, corner shops, factories and filling stations share about five percent of the country’s only import terminal.

The three plants involved represent under a third of Colombia’s gas-fired generating capacity. The rest of the fleet, and the rest of the economy, has no comparable claim on imported fuel.

The dependency built quickly. Imports supplied under three percent of the country’s gas between 2015 and 2023, then jumped past twenty percent within two years.

Now add the weather. Forecasters expect a dry El Niño in the second half of the year, which drains the reservoirs behind the dams that supply most of Colombia’s electricity.

The fuel got dearer just as the country needed more

Cargoes for the March to May window were contracted in February at just under fourteen dollars per million British thermal units. The June to August cargoes were closed in May at more than eighteen.

That is a rise of roughly a third, locked in for precisely the months when a drought would bite. The analyst Sergio Cabrales, who has tracked these contracts closely, puts the increase at thirty-two percent.

Industry is already voting with its burners. Sales of bottled petroleum gas grew nearly nineteen percent in the first four months of the year as food, glass, construction and paper plants substituted away from natural gas.

Imported gas now sets the price of Colombian gas

Here is the finding that should interest anyone holding Colombian assets. The regulator states plainly that the cost of imported gas has become the reference ceiling against which domestic gas is priced.

Wholesale gas in Colombia has climbed from under three dollars per million BTU in 2017 to about ten and a half, a cumulative rise of two hundred and fifty-one percent. The American benchmark averaged three and a half dollars last year.

Colombian gas therefore trades roughly two hundred percent above the international reference. The regulator calls this an artificial increase, because domestic wells that cost far less to run are being valued off a shipped molecule.

The pattern shows up in contracts as well. Firm supply deals averaged about six and a half dollars per million BTU last year and roughly eight this year, a jump of almost a quarter.

Somebody absorbs that. In 2025, regulated customers, meaning ordinary households, paid contracted prices almost forty-nine percent above what large unregulated buyers paid.

Where this lands: the inflation the central bank is fighting

Colombian inflation reached six point one four percent in June, and housing and utilities alone contributed more than a point and a half of it. The Banco de la República has answered by lifting its policy rate to twelve percent.

Interest rates do not drill wells. As long as a shipped cargo sets the domestic price, monetary policy is fighting an import bill rather than an overheating economy.

Relief exists, but the calendar is unkind. A small Pacific terminal at Buenaventura, once slated for August, is now due to start on the first of November, and a second Caribbean facility has slipped into 2027.

The real fix lies offshore, in the Sirius field, the largest gas discovery in Colombian history. It is not expected to produce commercially before 2030.

The regulator’s own recommendations read like an admission. It proposes price ceilings, limits on reselling the same molecule, and barring households from being supplied through the speculative resale market.

Meanwhile the underlying number keeps shrinking. Proved reserves now cover under six years of production, against more than fourteen years in 2007.

How large are Colombia gas imports?

Imported gas covered roughly a third of national consumption in early July, up from less than three percent across the years from 2015 to 2023.

Why does this raise household bills?

The regulator says imported gas now acts as the reference price for domestic gas, and regulated customers pay more than large industrial buyers.

What happens if a drought arrives?

Hydropower supplies most of Colombia’s electricity. A dry season forces gas-fired plants to run harder, against an import terminal that is largely committed already.