Colombia is importing more liquefied natural gas as its own fields decline, and the Energy Information Administration’s latest analysis puts a record on the shift. LNG imports accounted for 31 percent of the country’s monthly natural gas supply in July 2026, the highest share on the agency’s series, using data from BEC, Colombia’s gas market administrator.
The production side explains the turn. Average annual marketed gas production fell from 1,070 million cubic feet a day in 2022 to 772 million in 2025, and declined further to an average of 673 million in the first eight months of 2026. The Cusiana, Cupiagua and Pauto Sur fields and the offshore Guajira fields have been declining since 2022 with no large discoveries developed to replace them, and proved reserves fell 39 percent to 1.7 trillion cubic feet between 2022 and 2025, according to the National Hydrocarbons Agency.
The infrastructure is thin for the new role. Colombia has one operating LNG import terminal, SPEC LNG near Cartagena on the Caribbean coast, whose expansion is due online as early as the end of October. A second project, Buenaventura LNG, is targeting startup by November 2026, and the Puerto Bahia and Ballenas terminals could start next year.
Weather is the near term risk. Colombia’s government has declared a national disaster in anticipation of drought from an expected strong El Nino, and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the chance of a strong to very strong event through the first quarter of 2027 at more than 83 percent. Hydropower supplied 81 percent of Colombia’s electricity in 2025, but its share fell to 66 percent in July 2026 while gas and coal each rose to 12 percent. In the last strong El Nino, in March 2024, hydropower’s share fell to 55 percent and gas fired generation rose to 22 percent, which is the demand pattern the import terminals would have to serve.