Price 13 USD
Stock exchange NYSE
Market cap 27 BILLION
Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in Colombia on 31 May 2026. I lay the case that this is not that much a crucial event for Ecopetrol, the state owned company, but it will be perceived as crucial for big money flows and international markets.
For long term investors it could present opportunities as price swings can be expected. In this article I am looking at the business development and perspectives.
History
Ecopetrol was founded as a state company in 1951.
Eco does not stand for Ecological, but for Empresa (company) Colombiana de Petroleos. In english, Colombian oil company.
In 1983 The company discovered with $Oxy Occidental Petroleum the Caño Limon field, a field with 1250 billion barrels. The development of this field made Colombia an Oil exporting country.
In 2003 the company became a commercial company but still fully controlled by the state.
In 2007, Ecopetrol raised funds by selling around 10% of the company and became listed on the New York Stock exchange. It became listed at 27$ and still trades at 12.8$.
The earliest Data I have in Koyfin shows that it was listed at price to book around 2.3, rose higher, hit all times lows at 0.9 in 2025 before rebounding slightly in 2026.
In 2019, Ecopetrol entered the Permian Basin the USA in a joint Venture with Occidental Petroleum. This field is still being exploited to this day.
In 2021, Ecopetrol made its most transformative acquisition to date by buying a 51% controlling stake in listed ISA, an electricity transmission company active in the whole American continent. This added a much stabler business to Ecopetrol and transformed it into a multi energy company. This is when Ecopetrol became really interesting to me. Because you have the oil company discount but you start owning different high quality assets.
-In 2024, the Oslo project to acquire more fracking assets was blocked by the far Left Colombian president Gustavo Petro because he is against fracking. Gustavo Petro had some funny ideas like Ecopetrol should rather invest in AI than oil. Actually, that was not so crazy, but Ecopetrol does not have all the talent for that and should take advantage of its own talent pool in energy.
-in 2026 the CEO of Ecopetrol (Ricardo Roa) was charged for corruption (influence) and stepped down temporarily. He is accused of violating the election campaign spending limits (in Favor of current left wing president Gustavo Petro). He was put on leave until after the presidential elections.
-Lately there was also noise about Ecopetrol being forced to sell assets by the goverment, and it was later denied by said government and state ministry. There is always noise around large state owned companies and headlines daily. It’s important to ignore the noise, because the headlines never stop.
-In 2026, Ecopetrol invested in a listed Brazilian oil company. More on that below.
Business overview
Ecopetrol is oil and gas Colombian company, with most of the production being onshore.
It is an integrated energy company with 51% of EBITDA in 2025 for Production, 24% for energy transport via Pipelines, 6% refining and 19% energy transit and roads (ISA).
Overview of segments by volume
Production, reserves, transported oil and refined oil are stable in volume over time:
The following slide is a map. It does a good job in Showing the assets: first let’s note 13% of international production (mostly in the Permian in the USA).
Secondly we have 87% of production in Colombia, shown below. Here is an interesting map for geography nerds:
We see oil transportation assets, two refineries and oil production zones, as well as the ports for exportation.
1.Production and exploration:
The reserves are for around 7.5 years of production and are stable over time. This is supported by exploration activities. Even if the reserves might seem low at 7.5 years, if you renew the reserves yearly and it stays at 7.5 years. you have a stable business.
“By year-end, the Ecopetrol Group was a party to 68 contracts for exploratory activities, with 44 of those contracts being for Colombia, and 24 of those contracts for outside of Colombia (2025 Annual report). It has 380 to 430 wells in development as of year end 2025. “
This is a large operation. There are many joint ventures with international companies that bring technical expertise.
The key thing to understand here is that production is expected to remain stable over time, but with changes in mix expected (see further down).
2.Transportation:
Ecopetrol owns 5000 km of product pipelines and 3700 km of oil pipelines, and also four import export facilities. It earns fees on liquids transported.
3.Refining:
With two refining assets in Colombia, Ecopetrol refines a lot of its oil. Refining margins are good at the moment but the segment is still posting a loss: at least this is a loss on an accounting basis with depreciation and amortization.
4.ISA/ Energy Transmission and Toll Roads Segment:
In this article we will see the strategy and the key risk affecting Petrobras that is not affecting Ecopetrol. I am not a Colombian specialist, but here is what I found: