Gran Tierra Oil Pipeline Bombed

A pipeline from Canadian oil company Gran Tierra was bombed by an unidentified armed group on October 19 in southern Colombia. According to a military senior official, damages included fires and an oil spill.

The principal suspects of the attack are individual guerrilla fighters in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), despite the peace treaty signed by both their leader and former-President Juan Manuel Santos in August 2016. These dissidents often operate in the area and have refused to obey the ceasefire agreement.

Colombian oil infrastructure is a common target of militant rebel groups, as it offers high financial returns and large destructive potential. There have been previous attacks on pipelines in January and April, when the National Liberation Army (ELN) bombed the same Transandino Channel, a 109-mile-long pipeline capable of transporting around 85,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

According to state-run oil company Ecopetrol, the attacks caused massive oil spills in the rivers. A few days before the January attack, ELN members also kidnapped an Ecopetrol contractor who was analyzing damages to another section targeted by pipeline bombers in Cano-Limon.

The Cano-Limon pipeline is the second-most important pipeline in the country, and operations were forced to a halt for 38 days after the bombing on January 10.

General Cesar Augusto Parra condemned the most recent attack in rural Villagarzon,  affirming to Reuters that it was born out of “criminal activity” and that the military is actively “working to find the authors of this act.” He did not identify the name of the group responsible for the bombing.

Gran Tierra, which produces around 35,400 barrels of Colombian oil per day, has not yet issued a statement on the situation.