Ecopetrol president updates investors on fracking pilot project in Puerto Wilches as social leaders warn of harm to water and biodiversity,” PBI USA, March, 2021

Protests against fracking in Puerto Wilches… The first license for a fracking pilot project in Colombia was awarded by the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) to Ecopetrol on November 25, 2020, for its Kalé project near the community of Puerto Wilches, Santander…Hundreds of people in Puerto Wilches protested against this pilot project on December 13 and then again on February 10 of this year…Reuters also reports: “Environmentalists have called for the project to be suspended after threats against anti-fracking activists.”…Bayón says: “We emphatically reject those threats. We have said this is an exercise where everyone has to have an opinion.”…Despite this assurance from the oil company president, the reality remains that 177 human rights defenders were murdered in Colombia last year. And in 2019, 64 land and environmental defenders were killed in Colombia.…BNAmericas has reported that four companies have prequalified for a second round of licensing for fracking pilot projects in Colombia: ExxonMobil (in partnership with Toronto-based Sintana Energy), Ecopetrol, Drummond, and Tecpetrol…That article notes: “ANH [the National Hydrocarbons Agency] has said it hopes to award an additional three contracts in the second round, which will include acreage in the Cesar Ranchería and Middle Magdalena Valley basins.”