Colombian oil producers are concerned about capital for oil and natural gas moving away from domestic projects in favor of newly accessible Venezuelan plays, driving competition for equipment and technical personnel to multi-year highs, industry participants said.
With proven crude reserves roughly 150 times larger than Colombia's, Venezuelan output has climbed past 1.2mn b/d in the months since the US incursion of 3 January. Venezuela has signed more than 60 new energy deals since then to expand output, its government has said. This has made it an aggressive buyer of field services as the US has eased sanctions, Nelson Castaneda, president of Colombian oil services chamber Campetrol, said this week at the IX Oil and Gas Summit in Cartagena, Colombia.
"Venezuela is positioning itself as a competitor in the demand for goods, services and capital to achieve its energy transformation," Castaneda said. "We welcome investment diversification, but equally, it pains us that we cannot retain those resources here."
The rapid operational surge in Venezuela presents an opportunity for Colombian service firms, but poses a major challenge for domestic operators trying to maintain energy self-sufficiency competing with Venezuela for the capital, machinery and technical labor, Castaneda noted.
Venezuela aims to reach 1.37mn b/d by December 2026, up from 1.2mn b/d in December 2025, according to PdV data cited by Campetrol, which recently led delegations of service companies to Caracas and Maracaibo, Venezuela, in April and October, respectively, he added. Venezuela says it holds reserves of more than 303bn bl — roughly 149 times Colombia's reserves, Castaneda noted, although Venezuela's deposits have not been verified in several decades.
Bare ambition
Latin American producer Geopark exemplifies this shift. The Bogota-based firm plans to reactivate 300–400 wells in Venezuela's Bare block before year-end after signing a 25-year productive participation contract (CCP) with state-owned PdV.
Geopark will inject around $6.8bn in capital and operating investment in Venezuela, Geopark's chief executive Felipe Bayon recently said. Bayon is a former chief executive of Colombia's state-owned Ecopetrol.
Geopark will take operational control of Bare by late 2026, and plans to begin drilling over 100 new horizontal wells in 2028, targeting peak output of 90,000 boe/d by 2038. Geopark will begin carrying out maintenance work in Bare and rehabilitate existing infrastructure in 2027, Bayon told Argus on the sidelines of the conference.
"The contract terms are very good, with clear rules on how taxes operate," Bayon said. "Within the 35pc specified in the contract, taxes, royalties, and PdV's share are all included, which is absolutely critical."
Labor shortages compound the strain. Colombian oil workers, previously moving to Argentina's unconventional fields, are now heading to Venezuela, noted Colombian Petroleum Association president Frank Pearl.
"Capital is leaving for Argentina, Guyana, and Venezuela; equipment is leaving," Pearl said.
But Venezuela's drain may have a ceiling, as many major producers and others still cite concerns about investing heavily in Venezuela because of its uncertain political outlook.
"Analysts project infrastructure requirements between $50bn and $100bn," Fitch Ratings analyst Adriana Erazo said. "Who would be willing to take on that risk? It will require a significantly more stable legal, political and regulatory framework."
