EPM Seeks More Time to Cover Afinia’s Debt as Rationing Looms Over Colombia’s Caribbean Coast

Colombia’s Caribbean grid hinges on a 10-day payment extension

Colombia’s wholesale power market administrator has notified Afinia, legally Caribemar de la Costa, of outstanding October energy-purchase obligations and the regulatory deadline to settle them, leaving the Caribbean distribution utility days away from a measure that would curtail how much electricity it can draw from the national system. On Tuesday, October 27, 2026, Empresas Públicas de Medellín, the municipal utility that heads Grupo EPM and owns Afinia, confirmed it had asked the Comisión de Regulación de Energía y Gas (Energy and Gas Regulation Commission), or CREG, for an extension of seven to 10 days to settle roughly $131 billion COP ($41.5 million USD) owed to market administrator XM.

XM, a subsidiary of transmission company Interconexión Eléctrica (BVC: ISA), which is majority owned by Ecopetrol (NYSE: EC; BVC: ECOPETROL), says Afinia agreed to a payment plan and then broke it, with no transfers recorded since October 8, according to El Heraldo. The newspaper described the available remedy, a limitación de suministro (supply limitation), as a technical measure restricting deliveries to Afinia on the grounds that it lacks sufficient backing, and reported that it would mean scheduled rationing for about 1.4 million customers. EPM’s October 23 bulletin put Afinia’s market at close to 1.8 million users, a figure that predates the separation of part of its territory in August. Infobae, reviewing XM’s procedural calendar, reported that the nearest milestone falls on October 30 and cautioned that the filings are procedural steps rather than confirmed service interruptions.

Speaking to Blu Radio, EPM General Manager John Alberto Maya Salazar said the request had been filed and must be approved by the CREG, which would then notify XM. He put the broader financing need at $800 billion COP ($253 million USD) to cover energy purchases, supplier payments and other obligations through the end of the year, and said the money would come from a commercial bank loan carrying a sovereign guarantee and an EPM counter-guarantee rather than a direct transfer from the treasury. Negotiations with several banks were underway, he said, with a lender expected to be chosen within hours.

Maya told the station that EPM has been injecting roughly $100 billion COP a month into the subsidiary for an extended period and that it cannot continue on those terms.

“It is not possible for a company like EPM to keep making transfers every month and not see a structural solution come forward.” — John Alberto Maya Salazar, general manager, EPM

Afinia and Air-e were created out of the liquidation of Electricaribe, the utility that served Colombia’s Caribbean coast until the state took control of it, with Afinia beginning operations in 2020. Maya has since called the acquisition “the worst deal EPM has made in its history,” according to Infobae.

The warning that preceded this week’s deadline came in a bulletin EPM issued in Medellín on Friday, October 23, 2026, in which the group said its remaining options were narrowing and that structural measures were required. EPM said it has committed more than $3.6 trillion COP ($1.14 billion USD) to support Afinia’s operation since taking over the market, a budget it put at 213% above that of previous operators, and that continuity indicators SAIDI and SAIFI have improved by more than 70%. Infobae reported Maya putting the installed base of prepaid meters near 70,000 against a target of 600,000.

EPM said those operating gains have not been enough. The group reported a monthly cash deficit of approximately $400 billion COP ($127 million USD) and said official entities owed Afinia $420 billion COP as of September; Maya later put the amount owed by municipal governments, water utilities and other public bodies at between $400 billion and $450 billion COP. The bulletin said Afinia recovers roughly $57 COP for every $100 COP of energy it buys to serve its market. Maya gave Afinia’s energy losses as 29% and average collection as 86%, against 40% and 60% respectively in Cesar, the department that has since left Afinia’s footprint.

Afinia General Manager Ricardo José Arango Restrepo, appointed in February 2025, told the Audiencia Nacional de Equilibrio Energético (National Energy Balance Hearing) in Barranquilla that the company needs the $800 billion COP to operate through December 31, and proposed securitizing part of its obligations. He put Afinia’s liabilities at about $6.3 trillion COP ($2 billion USD). Pending receivables include roughly $507 billion COP in subsidies for estratos (socioeconomic strata) 1, 2 and 3 outstanding at the end of 2025, and more than $1.16 trillion COP under the opción tarifaria (tariff option), the mechanism the CREG created through Resolution 012 of 2020 to cap how much of their costs retailers could pass through to users during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Portafolio has explained. The accumulated balances are being recovered from customers in installments.

EPM has already separated part of the market it serves. Effective August 1, Afinia handed 35 municipalities in Cesar, Magdalena and southern Bolívar to a new subsidiary, Energía Atenea S.A.S. E.S.P., which trades as Energua and serves about 361,000 customers under General Manager Omar Otero Ruiz. Forbes Colombia reported energy losses of 41% and a collection rate of 61.2% in that market. EPM said the separation let Afinia concentrate on Bolívar, Córdoba and Sucre but did not by itself reverse the situation. On October 21, EPM announced it had agreed to sell its indirect stake in Energía Atenea to Latam Energy Distribution Group, a Panama-domiciled company backed by Central American investors, according to Portafolio. No price was disclosed and the deal has not closed.

The measures EPM has put to the Ministerio de Minas y Energía (Ministry of Mines and Energy) center on subsidies, the tariff option and the normalization of service in zonas subnormales (informal settlements), where the group says collection runs at 5%. El Heraldo reported that Maya has proposed a declaration of economic emergency tied to El Niño, on the grounds that ordinary legislative routes would take too long. The ministry is led by María Nohemí Arboleda Arango, who ran XM before being named to the cabinet. Maya argued the region needs its own regulatory treatment: “If we keep legislating the same way for Bogotá, for Medellín, as for the Caribbean region, we are out of step.”

The national government ruled out taking over Afinia in September, Infobae reported, after Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez, who chairs EPM’s board, met President Abelardo De La Espriella, Finance Minister Miguel Gómez Martínez and Arboleda Arango in Barranquilla. Gutiérrez said EPM would part with the subsidiary on the right terms: “If there is a buyer here, whoever it is, we at EPM are willing to sell it to them,” he said, for what the utility invested “plus one peso.” That contrasts with Air-e, the utility serving Atlántico, Magdalena and La Guajira, which the Superintendencia de Servicios Públicos Domiciliarios (Superintendency of Residential Public Utilities) intervened in September 2024. EPM and the government have set December 31 as the date for a definitive solution for the Caribbean market.

If the extension is denied and the loan is not closed in time, Maya said Afinia would have to draw up a curtailment plan identifying the circuits and sectors that would lose service for set periods, excluding hospitals, schools and other users with special protections. El Heraldo reported that Afinia generates annual losses of close to $1.5 trillion COP for EPM, and that transfers from the utility to the city of Medellín are expected to fall by $1.3 trillion COP next year.

Peso amounts are converted at the October 27, 2026 tasa representativa del mercado (market representative rate) of $3,157.94 COP per dollar.

Headline photo: High-voltage transmission lines at dusk. (Photo: Image by analogicus from Pixabay)