Colombia spent four years under leftist leadership apologizing for its energy resources. The penance ended when newly elected President Abelardo de la Espriella told his countrymen that energy security sits at the center of national sovereignty. He pledged to revive oil and gas exploration, rebuild state-owned petroleum company Ecopetrol, and authorize hydraulic fracturing under strict technical and environmental standards.

De la Espriella’s inauguration address in Cali laid out a clear strategy: Colombia will pursue an energy transition, but not from a position of dependence. Any transition, he said, must be "built from strength, not from weakness". That rules out policies embracing solar and wind energy by compromising affordability, reliability, and flexibility.

But the new president will be challenged by a poor economy inherited from past-President Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla leader. Elected on a promise to lead the world out of hydrocarbons, Petro banned new exploration contracts. At the COP30 climate summit in Belém, he informed the planet that survival is "only possible if we separate ourselves from oil, coal, and natural gas."

The fruit of that sermon was the decimation of Colombia's energy industry. Petro killed a Permian Basin joint venture with Occidental Petroleum and blocked a $3.6 billion purchase of a 30 percent stake in........

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