Colombia said it is seeking a U.S. sanctions exemption so it can invest in Venezuelan energy projects, including plans officials said could lead to the reopening of a long-stalled gas pipeline between the neighboring countries. In remarks reported by the Associated Press, Mines and Energy Minister Edwin Palma said Colombia is pursuing a license from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, to support investments in Venezuela’s electricity sector and in natural gas ventures.
Palma said the Colombian state-run oil company Ecopetrol is in discussions with U.S. officials about the regulatory requirements needed to launch the ventures with Venezuela. The request reflects how cross-border energy deals can become dependent on U.S. licensing when they involve entities or activities covered by U.S. sanctions. Without a special U.S. license, the cluster said companies or government entities that invest in Venezuela risk penalties including being cut off from the U.S. financial system or having assets in the United States seized.
The move also comes as the United States has eased sanctions connected to Venezuela’s oil industry following a U.S. military raid that captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, according to the report. The shift has enabled U.S. companies to buy and sell Venezuelan oil. For Colombia, the interest in Venezuela’s natural gas was described as revived in 2022, after Gustavo Petro took office and restored diplomatic relations with Venezuela, reversing years of strained ties.
Colombia officials said the practical challenge is that sanctions on companies that invest in Venezuela had prevented Ecopetrol from developing projects there. That difficulty has intersected with changes in Colombia’s own energy demand: the report said Colombia began importing gas on a massive scale in December 2024, after being self-sufficient for four decades, and it noted that critics blamed Petro for discouraging new ventures in Colombia.
Diplomacy between Bogotá and Caracas has continued despite setbacks. The report said a meeting between Petro and Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez was canceled last week, though bilateral meetings continued among officials representing defense, commerce and energy ministries from both countries. After those meetings, Venezuela sent Colombia a small export of liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, using tanker trucks that crossed the shared border, Rodríguez said.
Colombian officials now say they want to reopen the 2007 gas pipeline that has been inactive since 2019, citing political disputes and lack of maintenance. The report said Colombia’s approach is to align the infrastructure plans with the U.S. licensing path sought from OFAC, even as the U.S. sanctions landscape around Venezuela’s energy industry has been shifting.