The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Colombia and its economy, including the vital energy sector, particularly hard. After implementing one of the world’s longest pandemic lockdowns during 2020, which took the economy to the brink of collapse, a recent sharp spike in COVID-19 cases has forced the reintroduction of lockdown measures across the Andean country’s major cities. It is the popular tourist city of Medellin and Colombia’s all-important principal port Barranquilla which are the worst affected, with strict curfews and restrictions on movement now established. Those measures will impact many sectors of the economy including the vital petroleum industry and weigh heavily on Colombia’s desperately required recovery. During 2020, the oil price crash and COVID-19 pandemic sharply impacted the Andean country’s energy sector causing the gross domestic product to contract by almost (Spanish) 7%, Colombia’s worst economic decline on record. The strife-torn country’s dependence on crude oil becomes apparent when, […]