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Attacks come after ceasefire ended with ELN guerrilla group. Rebel groups had largely stopped such attacks this year.
Andrea Jaramillo, Bloomberg News
BOGOTA
EnergiesNet.com 08 27 2024
Oil pipelines in eastern Colombia were attacked five times in recent days, after a ceasefire with leftist rebels broke down.
The Cano Limon-Covenas pipeline, which transports crude from fields near the border with Venezuela to the Caribbean coast, was attacked three times, according to Cenit, the pipeline unit of state-controlled oil company Ecopetrol SA. The Bicentenario pipeline was blasted two times, Cenit said in a statement.
The attacks took place in Arauca province. Cenit didn’t say exactly when the attacks happened, who was behind them, or how long it would take to repair the damage. The region is a stronghold of the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army, or ELN.
Images published by local media showed a thick cloud of black smoke rising from the damaged Cano-Limon pipeline.
The attacks come after a ceasefire between the ELN and the government ended this month. Negotiators had been meeting with ELN chiefs in Venezuela to try to reach a peace accord, but the talks recently broke down.
In the year through July, two oil pipelines were attacked, compared to 29 in the same period a year earlier, according to defense ministry data. The ELN has been fighting the Colombian state since the 1960s for a Cuban-style revolution in the Andean nation.
bloomberg.com 08 26 2024
