Berlin Results Arrive Weeks After US-Colombia Minerals Framework

Jaguar Uranium Corp. (NYSE American: JAGU) said on September 24, 2026, that a resampling of drill core stored for more than a decade at its Berlin project in the department of Caldas, Colombia, returned rare earth elements, among them the permanent-magnet metals neodymium, praseodymium, terbium and dysprosium. The rare earths occur with uranium, vanadium and phosphate mineralization in the same sampled horizon. The highest-grade interval, from hole DDB-041, returned 0.63 meters from 170.57 meters downhole grading 3,570 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO), or 0.357%, with 607 ppm of magnet rare earth oxides (MREO), according to the company’s release.

The company described the figures as exploration results under the US Securities and Exchange Commission‘s Regulation S-K 1300. They do not represent a mineral resource or reserve, and neither the economic viability nor the metallurgical recovery of the rare earths has been established, the company said. Any move to fold the rare earth data into future resource work would require additional drilling, continuity assessment, analytical review and supporting technical studies, Jaguar said.

What the Resampling Returned

Jaguar highlighted three other intervals. Hole DDB-003 returned 1.53 meters at 2,267 ppm TREO and 329 ppm MREO from 80.77 meters downhole; DDB-015 returned 1.00 meter at 2,176 ppm TREO and 349 ppm MREO from 162.86 meters; and DDB-068 returned 0.50 meters at 2,532 ppm TREO and 414 ppm MREO from 435.86 meters.

TREO is the stoichiometric sum of the oxide equivalents of the 15 rare earth elements the laboratory reported, including yttrium, and MREO is the sum of the oxide equivalents of praseodymium, neodymium, terbium and dysprosium.

The full results table in the release also shows 2,737 ppm TREO and 492 ppm MREO over 0.74 meters in hole DDB-077. That hole and DDB-035, which together account for a material proportion of the intervals, were sampled for historical geochemical verification only, and the company said they are not representative of true thickness.

All reported widths are core lengths, and true widths have not been determined. The company said it selected the intervals from the core still available to test rare earth occurrence and grade variation across the syncline, including both flanks, the hinge, and positions above and below the mineralized horizon. It cautioned that the tested samples are not a systematic resampling of every historical mineralized interval, are not necessarily representative of the horizon as a whole, and were not designed to verify any historical estimate.

President and Chief Executive Officer Steven Gold said the company plans to use the results together with trenching, geophysics and drilling to refine its geological model and evaluate the continuity of the mineralization. “The initial results indicate that rare earth elements occur with uranium, phosphate and vanadium mineralization in the selected Berlin core intervals,” Gold said.

Core From Campaigns in 2010-11 and 2012

Berlin is an exploration-stage, sedimentary-hosted polymetallic project where more than 20,000 meters of historical drilling have been reported, according to the company. The core in this program came from two campaigns in 2010-11 and 2012 run by U3O8 Corp., which renamed itself Green Shift Commodities Ltd. (TSXV: GCOM; OTCQB: GRCMF) in 2022. Green Shift announced on April 9, 2024, that it had closed the sale of Berlin to Jaguar for $20,000 CAD in cash, 1,211,687 Jaguar shares and a 1% net smelter return royalty, plus further share and cash consideration tied to milestones.

The core has been held since 2015 in a locked storage facility that U3O8 Corp. established on mining concession 664-17, inside the project area. Jaguar acquired the facility in 2024 and said access is limited to authorized personnel and that the sampled intervals showed no signs of degradation or oxidation.

Jaguar collected samples from 13 historical holes. The batch of 150 samples comprised 108 quarter-core samples cut from remaining half-core, 28 pulps retained from earlier analyses, and 14 quality-control inserts: seven coarse blanks and seven certified reference materials, supplied by OREAS, an Australian producer of reference materials. Sample lengths matched those originally taken by U3O8 Corp. and averaged about 1 meter.

Samples were prepared by SGS Colombia S.A.S., a unit of SGS SA (SIX: SGSN; OTC: SGSOY), in Medellín and analyzed at an SGS laboratory in Callao, Peru. The Callao laboratory used a four-acid digestion for trace elements and uranium, and a sodium peroxide fusion, which captures rare earths held in resistate minerals, for the rare earth results.

The program was designed and supervised by Andrés Cáceres, who holds the Certified Professional Geologist designation from the American Institute of Professional Geologists and is the qualified person for the disclosure under Canada’s National Instrument 43-101 and the SEC’s Regulation S-K 1300. Cáceres is an independent contractor to Jaguar and managed the Berlin project for U3O8 Corp., its previous owner, from 2007 to 2015. Because the program relied on retained core and historical pulps, the company said, his verification was limited to the available material, storage and chain-of-custody records, the resampling procedures, laboratory certificates and the quality-control results. Cáceres also spent four years as a senior consultant with the Servicio Geológico Colombiano (Colombian Geological Survey) on uranium and rare earth research and exploration programs, and two years as vice president of exploration for Biondi Resources in Brazil, according to the release.

The Barranquilla Framework

Jaguar tied the results to the critical minerals and civil nuclear arrangements that the United States and Colombia signed in Barranquilla on September 8, 2026. According to a US Department of State fact sheet, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar signed a framework on critical minerals and rare earths and a memorandum of understanding on civil nuclear cooperation. Colombian President Abelardo De La Espriella described the day’s meetings as the opening of a wider package he calls the Acuerdos de Barranquilla (Barranquilla Agreements), as Finance Colombia reported.

The State Department said the minerals framework gives the two governments six months to jointly identify and finance mining and processing projects, drawing on tools that range from loans, guarantees and equity to offtake agreements and insurance. The framework also calls for streamlined permitting, pricing mechanisms such as price floors, national security reviews of critical minerals asset sales, investment in minerals recycling technology and cooperation on geological mapping.

“This multi-commodity profile directly aligns with the accelerating strategic cooperation between Colombia and the United States on secure critical-mineral supply chains and nuclear energy.”

— Steven Gold, president and CEO of Jaguar Uranium

From IPO to Rare Earths

Jaguar priced its initial public offering on the NYSE American in February 2026, raising $25 million USD by selling 6.3 million shares at $4 USD each, the low end of its marketed range, according to Renaissance Capital. Besides Berlin, the company is exploring the Laguna Salada project in Argentina’s Chubut province and the former Huemul uranium mine in Mendoza province.

Finance Colombia reported in March 2026 that Jaguar had begun assessing the rare earth potential of the Berlin core. Jaguar’s September 24 release does not give a timetable for the planned trenching, geophysics and drilling.

Headline photo: Boxes of historical drill core are stacked inside the Berlin project’s core storage facility in Caldas, Colombia. (Photo courtesy Jaguar Uranium)

Naín Andrés Pérez Toncel, the 26-year-old cartel boss known as “Bendito Menor,” is dead. Police killed him and his fiancée in a raid on a house in Riohacha on the night of September 3rd into September 4th, four weeks into the administration of President Abelardo de la Espriella. Former President Gustavo Petro, whose own government spent four years failing to capture the same man, is now publicly questioning why police didn’t take him alive.

The contrast is the story.

“Gustavo Petro no quiso hacer ninguna de esas operaciones; quiere decir que Gustavo Petro se apadrinó con ellos.”

— Sen. Germán Rodríguez, Salvación Nacional party

A narco-influencer who taunted a sitting president

Pérez Toncel ran Los Pachenca, formally the Autodefensas Conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada (ACSN), out of Colombia’s La Guajira department. He didn’t operate quietly. He posted video of himself on social media boasting “Controlando todos los rincones, papi. Conquistador hasta la muerte” — controlling every corner, a conqueror until death — and, on the day De la Espriella was inaugurated, a photo of a gun captioned “limpieza por todos los territorios,” a promise of cleanup in every territory, according to El Heraldo’s review of his posts. He called De la Espriella “un gatito” — a kitten.

De la Espriella named him a high-value military target on July 9th. According to El Colombiano’s reporting on the operation, investigators already had a human source placing him in Riohacha’s urban zone, and Gerson Arias, an investigator with the Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP), says his downfall may also have come from inside his own organization — associates tired of a commander who kept drawing heat. The FBI then ran a counterintelligence operation, planting a false rumor in the Guajira underworld that Pérez Toncel’s own people had killed him. The rumor spread widely enough that Los Pachenca had to publicly deny it — and the panicked calls Pérez Toncel and his fiancée made to reassure relatives, plus a GPS tracker already on his vehicle, let investigators triangulate his location, with an MQ-9A Reaper drone from US Southern Command standing by overhead. Police ultimately raided the house on foot, about thirty officers from an elite unit called Los Lobos plus Dijín and Dipol, after ruling out a strike because of the residential setting and nearby airport fuel tanks.

Pérez Toncel died in the raid along with his fiancée, Rosa Angélica Tarazona, alias “La Bebecita,” who was already facing a criminal conspiracy charge tied to the ACSN and was out on house arrest at the time, and two men identified as bodyguards.

Petro’s reaction — and the four years before it

Petro didn’t celebrate the operation. He went to X to ask why all four people in the house had to die, and asked rhetorically whether Colombia’s constitution has the death penalty — it doesn’t, and never has; Article 11 bans it outright. Medellín Mayor Federico “Fico” Gutiérrez answered him directly, writing that the Fuerza Pública had finally “descongeló” — thawed out.

That word choice wasn’t incidental. Two days before Pérez Toncel’s death, Loren Moss’s Finance Colombia podcast covered a set of recordings published by Noticias Caracol from a 2022 meeting between Petro’s peace commissioner, Danilo Rueda, and an envoy for the Clan del Golfo, Colombia’s largest criminal army. On the recording, Rueda proposes the two sides “jugar a los congelados” — play frozen, essentially a mutual stand-down. Colombia’s Ministry of Defense data, per Noticias Caracol’s reporting, shows no aerial bombardment against the Clan del Golfo for roughly two years after that meeting, while the group’s own ranks more than doubled, from roughly 4,500 fighters to nearly 10,000, spreading from about 165 municipalities to 338. FIP’s Gerson Arias and Human Rights Watch Americas director Juanita Goebertus have each separately attributed that growth to the ceasefire and the resulting collapse of state intelligence penetration of the group. Colombia’s Fiscalía General de la Nación and Procuraduría are now formally investigating the episode, after Representative Christian Garcés filed a criminal complaint naming Rueda and two other officials and asking Congress to examine what Petro himself knew.

As for the ACSN specifically: Arias told El Colombiano the Petro government opened exploratory contact with the group in August 2022, but the formal resolution authorizing talks didn’t arrive until 2024, the entire negotiation sat with one lone negotiator, and no legal framework was ever built to answer what the group would actually receive in exchange for disarming. Colombian Sen. Germán Rodríguez, of the Salvación Nacional party, has a blunter read: he told Semana that “desde Gustavo Petro se tenían estas informaciones de inteligencia. Quiere decir que Gustavo Petro no quiso hacer ninguna de esas operaciones; quiere decir que Gustavo Petro se apadrinó con ellos” — Petro had this intelligence, chose not to run the operations, and got in bed with them.

Four weeks versus four years

De la Espriella’s government reports a cumulative security balance, as of September 5th, of 14,422 captures, 43,684 kilograms of drugs seized, 1,485 firearms recovered, and roughly 1,321 hectares of coca eradicated since taking office on August 7th. That includes Operación Azarías, which killed 23 members of an EMC front in Guaviare and captured six more, and 41 signed extraditions in nineteen days — among them Willington Henao Gutiérrez (“El Mocho”), Carmen Evelio Castillo Carrillo (“Muñeca”), Geovanni Andrés Rojas (“Araña”), Gabriel Yepes Mejía (“H.H.”), and Freddy Castillo Carrillo (“Pinocho”). All five had extraditions already approved under Petro’s government in 2025, then frozen while they sat at Total Peace negotiating tables, according to Finance Colombia’s own reporting on the decision. Two of them, Castillo Carrillo (“Muñeca”) and her brother Freddy (“Pinocho”), are themselves identified as top Los Pachenca leaders — Bendito Menor’s own organization — and remain at large.

The operations haven’t been without real cost. Colombia’s Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal confirmed two of the Azarías dead were minors, bringing to at least six the number of minors killed in Colombian airstrikes in under a month, according to El Diario de Pereira. Bogotá’s 34th Family Court, in a ruling by Judge Viviana Arciniegas Gómez, has ordered the government to halt airstrikes anywhere there is reasonably verifiable information that minors could be present — an order Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara is appealing, calling it “absurdo e inconstitucional.” Colombia’s Defensora del Pueblo, Iris Marín Ortiz, separately criticized the government for parading bodies from the Azarías operation for the cameras, arguing the state doesn’t need to resemble what it’s fighting.

A biographical irony

There is also a personal history worth naming directly: it’s biographical, not incidental. Petro was a member of the M-19 guerrilla; on October 25th, 1985, in Zipaquirá, he was arrested along with eight others in a raid that turned up firearms, homemade explosives, and propaganda. He was convicted of illegal possession of weapons and explosives under a state-of-siege decree, per case documents obtained by Semana, and released on February 5th, 1987, for pena cumplida — sentence served. Colombia’s 1991 Constitution later stripped state-of-siege convictions of much of their legal weight, according to Carlos Alonso Lucio, a former M-19 member quoted in that same Semana report, though Semana’s reporting also notes the question isn’t entirely settled under Article 197 of the Constitution.

What matters going forward

Two explanations for Colombia’s failure to stop groups like the ACSN and the Clan del Golfo under the Petro government aren’t mutually exclusive. One is institutional failure: a Total Peace framework that was underbuilt and understaffed, run against a two-year drift with no legal architecture behind it. The other is an active, documented choice by senior officials to trade state leverage for nothing, on tape, while the organizations they were negotiating with roughly doubled in size. The evidence for each sits in the public record — one in Gerson Arias’s institutional history, the other in a Fiscalía case file with Danilo Rueda’s name on it.

What matters going forward is which government’s incentives are actually governing security policy in Colombia: one whose peace architecture chose, on tape, not to fight the country’s largest criminal organization, or one moving quickly — even if unsustainably fast — in the opposite direction. Four weeks isn’t a track record. But four years was a policy.

Chocó Will Be Rebuilding Long After the Quake Leaves the Headlines

On August 10, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Colombia, with its epicenter in San José del Palmar, Chocó. In a matter of seconds, homes, schools, health infrastructure and entire communities were affected.

According to official figures released on August 25 by Colombia’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD), the earthquake had affected 361,353 people across 16 departments and 494 municipalities. The toll included 331 people dead, 4,439 injured and 240 still missing. More than 178,000 homes had been damaged, over 31,000 destroyed, and 603 buildings had collapsed.

An earthquake is indiscriminate when it strikes. Its consequences are not. Where the earth shakes matters. Because when a disaster hits a territory that has spent decades carrying the weight of poverty, weak infrastructure, geographic isolation, armed conflict and institutional neglect, the emergency does not begin with the earthquake. The earthquake simply finds an old wound.

According to Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics, or DANE, Chocó remains the department with the highest rate of monetary poverty in the country: 65.3% of its population lived in monetary poverty in 2025. That means nearly two out of every three people. So when we speak about the earthquake in Chocó, we cannot speak only about collapsed homes. We also have to speak about what was already fragile before the first wall fell.

And what happens after the cameras leave? Because Colombia knows how to mobilize in the first days of a tragedy. We donate. We share links. We organize collections. We send messages. For a brief moment, a place that has often been invisible occupies the center of our attention. And then, inevitably, something else happens. Another headline. Another crisis. Another trending topic. The emergency disappears from our screens long before it disappears from people’s lives.

That is where I believe philanthropy has a responsibility that goes beyond generosity. Its role is not simply to respond when tragedy becomes visible. It is also to ask what happens when it is no longer visible.

“The emergency disappears from our screens long before it disappears from people’s lives.”

— Mónica Gil Ryan

At ONE Social Investment, we have been thinking deeply about that question in the aftermath of the earthquake. Together with Sankofa Danzafro, La Pascasia, Presentes Corporación and a community of artists, cultural leaders and citizens, we created Una Noche por Chocó (A Night for Chocó).

The idea was simple: bring people together and turn attention into action. And people responded. Through this collective effort, $192,462,609 COP were raised, alongside a logistics operation that supported 66 flight segments, representing 40.4 hours of flight, the transportation of around 20 tons of humanitarian aid, and the movement of more than 150 people from medical and humanitarian teams.

These numbers matter because they represent something very concrete: people, supplies and resources reaching where they were needed. They also show what can happen when philanthropy is understood not only as giving money, but as connecting people, capabilities and resources around a common purpose.

Art played an important part in that. More than 30 artists donated their work. People bought tickets, acquired artwork, donated and brought their networks into the conversation. Read more about Una Noche por Chocó and see what this collective effort made possible, including the results and moments from the event.

Art does not rebuild a house by itself. Neither does a concert. But art can do something that philanthropy sometimes forgets: it can keep us emotionally connected to people whose reality is not our own. That connection matters because emergencies compete for our attention.

The first days after a disaster bring headlines, images and an understandable wave of solidarity. But rebuilding does not happen at the speed of the news cycle. The families affected by the earthquake will still need support when Chocó is no longer on the front page. They will still be rebuilding homes, recovering livelihoods and navigating the consequences of losing what they had.

And that is exactly where we are now. The emergency is not over. The immediate response is giving way to something harder and slower: reconstruction. This is the moment when solidarity is tested in a different way. Not by how quickly we can react, but by whether we are willing to stay involved when the urgency becomes less visible.

At ONE, we are continuing to support the response through different efforts and partnerships, because the work ahead is bigger than any one organization. It requires companies, foundations, artists, communities, donors and citizens willing to contribute what they can: capital, logistics, knowledge, visibility, relationships or simply attention.

That solidarity is also crossing borders. On September 26, Colombians and friends of Colombia in Dublin came together at River Bar for Cuando Pase el Temblor (When the Tremor Passes), a fundraising event supporting the recovery of communities affected by the earthquake in Chocó. The afternoon brought together coffee tasting, bingo with €700 EUR in prizes, salsa, dance and music, creating a space to come together while raising resources for Colombia. Each €15 EUR ($17 USD) ticket was a donation. Thank you to everyone in Dublin who organized, attended and gave, and who turned an afternoon an ocean away into real support for Chocó.

The work continues, and so does the need. To support ONE Social Investment’s ongoing response in Chocó, you can make a contribution of any amount through our international donation page, or find ways to give from Colombia on ONE’s campaign page.

Because solidarity should not have an expiration date. The earthquake lasted seconds. Rebuilding will take much longer. The question is whether Chocó will have to do it alone.

If you believe the answer should be no, keep being part of it. Share the campaign. Bring your company or organization into the effort. Connect us with people who can help. Or simply keep talking about Chocó when it is no longer the headline. The emergency is still alive. And so should be our solidarity.

Follow the conversation:
LinkedIn: Mónica Gil Ryan
Instagram: @monicagilryan

Headline photo: Mónica Gil Ryan (third from left), founder and CEO of ONE Social Investment, with volunteers and donated supplies before a humanitarian flight for earthquake-affected communities. (Photo courtesy ONE Social Investment)

Colombia’s 2027 Outlook Pits Investment Revival Against Fiscal Repair

Grupo Cibest (NYSE: CIB; BVC: CIBEST, PFCIBEST), the financial holding company that has owned Bancolombia since a 2025 corporate reorganization, has lowered its forecast for Colombia’s 2027 GDP growth to 2.4% from 2.6%, as an expected recovery in investment runs into fiscal adjustment, persistent inflation and a restrictive monetary policy. The annual outlook, Guía 2027: Colombia Resiste (2027 Guide: Colombia Endures), published this month, was prepared by the group’s Dirección de Investigaciones Económicas, Sectoriales y de Mercado (Economic, Sector and Market Research Department), led by Laura Clavijo Muñoz, and is accompanied by a spreadsheet of annual, quarterly and monthly projections with observed data updated on September 18, 2026.

The authors compare the country’s position heading into 2027 to an endurance test. They describe an economy that has absorbed several years of successive shocks, most recently the magnitude 7.4 earthquake of August 10, 2026, and now faces a macroeconomic environment the report calls complex but full of opportunities. Expectations are rising, the authors write, but the fundamentals are under review: the forces that drove growth are losing strength, public finances have deteriorated, and climate risks loom, among them what the report calls an aggressive El Niño.

The report’s central argument is that 2027 will be defined by two narratives running at the same time. One is a growing expectation of an investment recovery, driven by a friendlier environment for private capital, efforts to attract foreign direct investment and a rebound in lagging sectors such as mining and construction. The other is adjustment: inflation that will take time to converge, a monetary policy stance that remains restrictive, significant fiscal deterioration and structural competitiveness problems.

“The main economic story for the coming year will be the coexistence of two narratives: a push for investment and macroprudential adjustment.”

— Laura Clavijo Muñoz, director of economic, sector and market research, Grupo Cibest

Growth Forecast Trimmed to 2.4%

The revised 2.4% forecast follows growth of 2.6% in 2025 and an estimated 2.6% in 2026. The report presents the revision as the net result of opposing forces, which it quantifies as rounded percentage-point contributions to GDP growth. Better signals for investment would add about 0.3 points and post-earthquake reconstruction another 0.2 points. Against that, monetary policy restraint would subtract about 0.3 points and fiscal adjustment about 0.5 points.

The analysis sets out pessimistic and optimistic scenarios. In Grupo Cibest’s pessimistic scenario, 2027 growth falls to 0.9%; in the optimistic scenario it reaches 3.9%. The probability-weighted scenario sits at about 2.0%, below the base case. Over the medium term, the base case settles at around 2.7% a year from 2028 through 2030.

Consumption Slows, Investment Picks Up

Household consumption remains the largest engine of domestic demand, but it is decelerating. Grupo Cibest projects private consumption growth of 2.2% in 2027, down from 2.7% in 2026, contributing about 1.7 percentage points to GDP growth. The report attributes the slowdown to the exhaustion of a buying cycle for durable goods, higher inflation, high interest rates, a rise in unemployment and more moderate growth in remittances. Real retail sales, which Grupo Cibest expects to grow 10.6% in 2026 on the strength of vehicle and technology purchases, would slow to 5.2% in 2027 as vehicle sales normalize and temporary stimulus such as the World Cup fades. New vehicle sales are forecast to fall 12.3% to about 285,000 units, after a 2026 that the report estimates will reach 325,000 units, the highest volume since 2014.

Government consumption would slow from 9.1% growth in 2026 to 5.2% in 2027, as Grupo Cibest expects the administration to trim operating and investment budgets. The adjustment has limits: the report estimates that 80% to 85% of public spending is inflexible, and reconstruction in the areas hit by the earthquake adds new spending needs. The public sector would still contribute about 0.9 percentage points to growth.

Fixed investment is where the report sees the turn. Grupo Cibest forecasts growth of 4.7% in 2027, up from 3.5% in 2026, lifting investment to 17.2% of GDP from an estimated 16.8%. The report cites expectations of a more favorable business environment, renewed mining and energy exploration and a recovery in business confidence, while warning that elevated interest rates will continue to condition investment decisions. Exports would accelerate from 1.0% to 3.1% on a corrected exchange rate, higher crude production, security gains and the end of the trade dispute with Ecuador, while import growth would ease from 6.9% to 5.8%.

Construction Rebounds as Mining Accelerates

On the supply side, the largest swing is in construction, which the report expects to grow 4.3% in 2027 after two consecutive years of contraction (-2.7% in 2025 and -1.3% in 2026). Civil works would grow 7.8% in 2026 and 5.4% in 2027, driven by projects already under contract, including Bogotá Metro Line 1, a project the report sizes at $22.3 trillion COP, Medellín’s Metro de la 80, the Regiotram de Occidente commuter rail line and the Accesos Norte II road corridor. The report identifies annual fiscal space, not a shortage of projects, as the main limit on the next cycle: transportation accounts for $190.9 trillion COP, or 74.8% of authorized vigencias futuras (future-year budget commitments).

Residential building would recover more slowly. Grupo Cibest projects housing sales of 171,624 units in 2026 and 175,506 in 2027, but the ratio of housing starts to sales has fallen from 91% in 2024 to an estimated 68% in 2026 and would slip to 65% in 2027. Grupo Cibest expects the mortgage rate to fall from 15.2% at the end of 2026 to 13.9% in 2027, while 10-year government bond yields end 2027 near 13.3%, keeping long-term project financing expensive. Reconstruction adds a new source of demand: more than 36,000 homes were destroyed and about 206,000 damaged by the earthquake, according to the report.

Mining would accelerate from 1.3% to 2.4%, and agriculture would grow 1.6% after a 2.0% contraction in 2026, although El Niño would limit the recovery during the first part of the year. Entertainment and household services would be the fastest-growing activity in 2027 at 4.4%, down from 6.3% in 2026, while trade, transportation, lodging and food services slow to 1.5% and manufacturing to 1.0%.

The report’s macroeconomic chapter attributes the mining pickup to higher oil extraction, while its sector chapter describes Colombia’s hydrocarbons industry as being in structural decline. That chapter expects oil output to close 2026 at 734,000 barrels per day and fall 6.5% to 686,000 barrels per day in 2027, citing the natural decline of mature fields and insufficient drilling. Commercial natural gas production fell 17.1% in 2025 and another 11.6% between January and August 2026, while imported supply rose 45.8%, from 179 to 262 billion British thermal units per day (GBTUD) between 2025 and the year to date, a decline in domestic supply that has come alongside record-low gas reserves. The report estimates that imported gas contracted for the end of 2026 will cost 2.5 times as much as domestic supply. Its reserve and production figures draw on data from the Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos (National Hydrocarbons Agency, ANH) and the Unidad de Planeación Minero Energética (Mining and Energy Planning Unit, UPME).

The Earthquake: A Short-term Hit, Then a Modest Boost

The August 10 earthquake, centered near San José del Palmar in the department of Chocó according to the US Geological Survey, struck regions that account for about 15.5% of national GDP. Bancolombia transaction data cited in the report show consumer spending during the week of the quake ran 8.9% below its usual weekly level nationally and 26.7% below it across the most affected departments, with drops of 49.6% in Risaralda, 23.1% in Valle del Cauca, 22.6% in Quindío and 20.6% in Caldas. Spending recovered by the end of August, which the authors describe as a partial rebound rather than a return to normal.

The report estimates that emergency response, reconstruction and support programs will cost the government between 0.7% and 1.3% of GDP, raising the deficit in both 2026 and 2027. Multilateral financing may ease liquidity pressure but would add to debt. As reconstruction spending is executed, it would add about 0.2 percentage points to 2027 growth, provided energy and materials supply, logistics corridors and execution capacity hold up. Colombian insurers had recorded an estimated $3.7 trillion COP in earthquake claims as of September 7.

Unemployment Edges Higher

The labor market has been a pillar of household spending, according to the report. National unemployment averaged 8.8% between January and July 2026, down from 9.5% in the same period of 2025, and 9.0% in the main urban areas, down from 9.3%, according to Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (National Administrative Department of Statistics, DANE) data cited in the report, which credits remittances, the resilience of several sectors, migration flows and public-sector hiring. Grupo Cibest expects the urban unemployment rate for the 13 main metropolitan areas to average 8.3% for the rest of 2026, for an annual average of about 8.7%, and to rise to 9.1% in 2027 as labor-intensive sectors such as retail and manufacturing slow and fiscal austerity limits public hiring. Informality remains near 54% of the employed population, and the report warns that cumulative minimum wage increases could hinder formalization and that higher labor costs from the labor reform will pressure formal hiring in the short term, though it expects working conditions to improve over the long term.

The Fiscal Problem

The report identifies starting a deficit adjustment that limits the deterioration of public debt as the main challenge for 2027. The draft 2027 Presupuesto General de la Nación (General National Budget) and the updated financial plan from the Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público (Ministry of Finance and Public Credit) raised the central government deficit forecast from 5.3% to 7.2% of GDP for 2026 and from 4.5% to 9.4% for 2027. The ministry’s estimates imply financing needs of $266.3 trillion COP next year, which the report calls historically high. Through July, the accumulated central government deficit reached 3.8% of GDP, one of the highest readings in 20 years.

The government has proposed an adjustment path that would cut the 2027 deficit to 7.4% of GDP, implying a reduction of $45 trillion COP (2.2% of GDP), and has said it intends to present a Ley de Rescate Económico (Economic Rescue Law) aimed at correcting the deficit. Those figures do not fully reconcile: lowering the deficit from the ministry’s 9.4% projection to 7.4% is a cut of 2.0 percentage points, not the 2.2% of GDP the report cites alongside the $45 trillion COP figure. Grupo Cibest expects spending rigidities and competition for resources to hold the cut closer to $30 trillion COP (1.5% of GDP). Its base case therefore puts the 2027 deficit at 7.9% of GDP, with a primary deficit of 3.0%, and gross central government debt rising to 68.1% of GDP in 2027 and about 72.8% by 2029. The report breaks the task into three separate stages: adjusting the deficit, ensuring debt sustainability and returning to the regla fiscal (fiscal rule).

Inflation Rises Again Before It Falls

Annual inflation reached 6.24% in August 2026, its highest level since July 2024, driven by indexation, labor costs, utility rates and food supply shocks. Grupo Cibest expects inflation to close 2026 at 6.7%, peak at about 7.3% in the first half of 2027 and end the year at 5.5%, still well above the upper limit of the target range set by the Banco de la República (Bank of the Republic, Colombia’s central bank). Grupo Cibest does not expect inflation to return to that range until the first quarter of 2028.

El Niño is the main reason for the first-half spike. The report cites the Climate Prediction Center of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which assigns a probability above 90% to a very strong episode peaking in October through December 2026, and a 75% probability that it will exceed every event recorded since 1950. With hydropower accounting for about 62% of Colombia’s energy matrix, Grupo Cibest estimates that a strong episode could add 0.7 to 1.9 percentage points to annual inflation. Food inflation would peak at 14.2% in the second quarter of 2027 before easing to 7.4% by December, and regulated prices would peak at 10.0% in the first quarter before closing at around 7.5%. Services inflation would fall from about 6.9% to 5.0%, held up by rent indexation and a minimum wage increase above inflation, while goods inflation stays below 2.5% on the lagged effect of the peso’s appreciation.

The report lists five upside risks: a 2027 minimum wage increase well above inflation and productivity, higher fuel prices or regulated tariffs, a fiscal deterioration that raises the risk premium and weakens the peso, global trade and geopolitical tensions that raise freight and commodity costs, and a longer or stronger El Niño.

Rates on Hold at 12% Until Late 2027

The central bank’s board raised its benchmark rate by 275 basis points in 2026, to 12.00%, then held it in July. Grupo Cibest expects the rate to remain at 12.00% through September 2027, with cuts resuming only in the fourth quarter to end the year at 11.50%. The rate would fall to 9.50% by the end of 2028 and 7.50% by the end of 2029, converging toward 7.00% over the long term. The authors note that the projected 7.9% deficit narrows the room for monetary easing, and that policy would stay restrictive in real terms throughout the forecast horizon even without further board action.

For Títulos de Tesorería (TES, Colombia’s peso-denominated government bonds), the report expects the fixed-rate curve to steepen in 2027. Short-term yields would be anchored by the stable policy rate, with the one-year zero-coupon node falling from 11.98% at the end of 2026 to 11.26% at the end of 2027. Longer maturities would continue to carry a fiscal risk premium and absorb heavier issuance: the group projects the five-year and 10-year zero-coupon nodes at 12.40% and 13.30% at the end of 2027. Before that, it expects the 10-year node to rise from an August average of 12.5% to 13.9% by the end of 2026.

The Peso: Strength First, Then Fiscal Reality

The Colombian peso averaged 3,654 COP per US dollar in the first half of 2026 amid election uncertainty, then appreciated sharply after the presidential election on expectations of more private-sector-friendly economic policy, touching a low of 3,048 COP in the third quarter. Grupo Cibest forecasts an average of 3,417 COP in 2026, a 15.7% appreciation from 2025, and 3,331 COP in 2027. High oil prices, carry trade demand, remittances, international reconstruction aid and a sovereign risk premium the group expects to stay low as long as the government sticks to fiscal prudence would support the currency in the near term.

Grupo Cibest expects the peso to begin weakening in the first quarter of 2027, when the fiscal situation takes on greater weight in assessments of the country. Its base case has the peso ending 2027 at about 3,435 COP and weakening to an average of 3,756 COP by 2030. The scenario spread is wide: for 2027, the pessimistic case averages 3,620 COP and the optimistic case 3,040 COP.

External Accounts and Credit

The current account deficit widened to 3.5% of GDP in the second quarter of 2026 ($4.7 billion USD), its highest since the fourth quarter of 2022. Grupo Cibest projects the annual deficit at 2.5% of GDP in 2026 and 3.2% in 2027, driven by a larger goods trade gap and rising profit outflows from companies with foreign direct investment, with net factor income outflows increasing from 2.6% to 3.5% of GDP. Remittances, at about 3.4% of GDP, would cushion the gap, and the deficit would stay below its long-term average of 4.0% of GDP.

In banking, the group expects real loan growth of 2.1% in 2026 and 3.0% in 2027, with commercial lending gaining traction as the recovery consolidates and support initiatives for sectors such as infrastructure, housing, mining and energy take effect. Colombian banks posted a return on equity of 18.6% in the second quarter of 2026, supported by asset quality and investment income rather than loan growth, according to the report, which draws on data from the Superintendencia Financiera (Financial Superintendency). Credit has fallen to about 41% of GDP, its lowest level since 2014. The pension reform, scheduled to take effect in April 2027, could reduce flows into private pension funds by as much as 40% and, assuming current portfolio allocations hold, cut the monthly flows those funds direct into local equities and TES by close to 50% in 2027.

The Global Backdrop

The outlook assumes a gradual normalization of the conflict in the Middle East, which began when the US launched an offensive against Iran on the last day of February 2026. Grupo Cibest forecasts Brent crude averaging $90.4 USD per barrel in 2026 and $80.5 USD in 2027. It cites International Monetary Fund projections of global growth accelerating from 3.0% in 2026 to 3.4% in 2027, and expects US growth of 2.0% in 2027, with the Federal Reserve raising rates once more this year to a 4.00% to 4.25% range and then holding through 2027. Growth among Colombia’s main trading partners would slow to 2.1% in 2026 and 2027 from 2.2% in 2025.

Assumptions Behind the Base Case

The report links a better policy environment for hydrocarbons, construction, infrastructure and energy to new project flows, and it expects construction (including civil works), mining and reconstruction to carry much of the 2027 investment recovery. Its base case also rests on several assumptions: a deficit cut of about $30 trillion COP, smaller than the government’s own target; an El Niño that fades in the second quarter of 2027; and a peso that weakens gradually.

In the report’s analysis, progress on fiscal consolidation will shape the exchange rate and capital flows, the pace of interest rate cuts and the path of long-term bond yields. The authors describe 2027 as an ultramarathon run against the clock on irregular terrain and in extreme weather, and forecast a year of gradual recovery in which growth opportunities coexist with significant fiscal and inflationary challenges.

Headline photo: Office towers in Bogotá. (Photo: Image by bergslay from Pixabay)

A 30-year master plan meets a concession that ends in 2032

Colombia’s national government will have concessionaire Airplan build a new passenger terminal at José María Córdova International Airport in Rionegro, Antioquia, the airport that serves Medellín, while planning for a long-sought second runway moves to a land-purchase strategy with regional governments. Minister of Transport Elsa Noguera, a member of President Abelardo de la Espriella’s cabinet, outlined the plan during a political-control debate before the Comisión Sexta de la Cámara de Representantes (Sixth Committee of the House of Representatives), according to Valora Analitik, which reported her remarks on September 22, 2026.

Noguera said the airport’s existing runway still has the technical capacity to handle up to 37 million passengers a year, and that the immediate work will focus on the passenger building. “A new terminal for 20 million more passengers is required, with a single runway. The great pain of the paisas is that they already want to think about their second runway, because today they don’t have one, because it costs a lot,” she said, referring to the people of Antioquia. Valora Analitik reported that the new building is needed to lift the airport’s capacity above 17 million passengers a year.

The new terminal fits inside the existing contract

Noguera told the committee that Airplan’s current concession contract has room to absorb the terminal project, leaving only the building’s siting to be negotiated between the government and the concessionaire.

“Now, whether it will be built alongside or in front is something we will have to reconcile, but the good news is that the concession has room to build it.”

— Elsa Noguera, Minister of Transport of Colombia

That contract runs until 2032, according to a March 2026 release from the Ministerio de Transporte (Ministry of Transport). Noguera said the current concession will not be able to build the second runway. Instead, the national government will plan it together with the Gobernación de Antioquia (Antioquia Governor’s Office) and other territorial governments.

Land first, then a price freeze

Noguera said the Aeronáutica Civil (Civil Aviation Authority, known as Aerocivil) had previously issued an administrative act declaring the surrounding land of strategic importance in order to contain land prices, but that the measure collapsed because no funds were available to acquire the property. She described the message she sent to local governments: “(We are asking that) they start buying, and we will once again issue the administrative act that declares the strategic importance and freezes prices in the surrounding area, so that in the future they can have it.”

A master plan to 2055, with its studies under legal reserve

Aerocivil approved an update of the Plan Maestro Aeroportuario (Airport Master Plan) for José María Córdova through Resolution 01699 of May 26, 2026, signed by Acting Director General Luis Alfonso Martínez Chimenty and announced by the authority on August 4, 2026. The plan sets a 30-year roadmap and replaces the previous update, approved by Resolution 2487 of August 25, 2016.

According to Aerocivil, the plan rests on prefeasibility studies for the airport’s maximum expansion, feasibility studies for the first investment phase (known as PAL 1), and a feasibility study for a second runway covering the 2025–2030 and 2030–2035 periods. The technical consultancy was performed by Consorcio Aeropuerto Rionegro 30 and supervised by Consorcio INT PM Rionegro. Article 5 of the resolution directs the Ministry of Transport, the Agencia Nacional de Infraestructura (National Infrastructure Agency, ANI), the Instituto Nacional de Vías (National Roads Institute, Invías), the Antioquia Governor’s Office, and the mayors’ offices and planning departments of the Alcaldía de Rionegro (Rionegro Mayor’s Office) and the Alcaldía de Medellín (Medellín Mayor’s Office), among others, to align their land-use plans with the master plan, as required under Ley 388 de 1997 (Law 388 of 1997).

Aerocivil also stated that the plan is a guiding framework only, and that the execution of specific works and the allocation of budgets will each require separate legal authorizations. The authority placed the plan’s technical, financial, design and land studies under legal reserve, citing national security, aviation operational safety and the protection of critical state infrastructure.

Figures from the consulting consortium’s prefeasibility analysis and financial scheme, reported by Portafolio, put total investment at $22 trillion COP in constant 2024 pesos: 29% in a first phase through 2030, 49% in a second stage, 13% in a third stage through 2055, and 9% for land purchases and environmental management in the initial stage. The plan projects passenger traffic rising from 14 million in 2025 to 42.7 million in 2055, and air cargo from 119,000 tons to 202,900 tons a year. In the plan’s evaluation of how to deliver the second runway, a new public-private partnership concession scored 4.9 points against 4.7 for keeping the work inside Airplan’s current contract, according to Portafolio, with the transfer of risk to the contractor carrying the heaviest weight.

Stalled, then approved, then left out

In May 2025, Finance Colombia reported that the administration of former President Gustavo Petro had allocated funds only for the first stage of the master plan, and not for that stage’s land purchases, with Vice Minister of Infrastructure Liliana María Ospina stating that the second-runway phase “exceeds the current administration’s budgetary planning.” In July 2025, Finance Colombia reported that the Medellín Mayor’s Office said the national government had not formally responded to Mayor Federico Gutiérrez’s repeated requests for more immigration staff at the airport, or to the city’s offer of personnel and logistical support, as travelers reported immigration waits of up to six hours.

Near-term works also waited on the Petro government, and it ultimately cleared them. The contract amendment covering the works, otrosí 27, had been awaiting the signature of ANI’s vice president for contract management since December 2025, and the Ministry of Transport supplied the missing sign-off on March 26, 2026, according to El Tiempo. The same day, the ministry and ANI announced a $167 billion COP program for six airports in the country’s center-north: Rionegro, Medellín, Montería, Carepa, Quibdó and Corozal. The ministry said the works would be carried out by the concessionaire “without modifying the current contract,” and that Rionegro, which handles about 14 million passengers a year against an installed capacity of 11 million, would be expanded to 17 million. “More and more Colombians are flying, and our infrastructure has to be up to that reality,” then-Minister of Transport María Fernanda Rojas said in the release.

The ministry started construction on April 24, 2026. The works include a remote boarding lounge with six gates, new aircraft stands, additional check-in positions and security lanes, and upgrades to baggage handling and immigration, with the goal of raising capacity to 28 operations per hour. The project had reached 24% completion by mid-September, Infobae reported, citing ANI.

In July 2026, however, José María Córdova was left out of Conpes 4205, the national airport-investment policy document of the Consejo Nacional de Política Económica y Social (National Council for Economic and Social Policy), which El Tiempo reported commits $6.54 trillion COP through 2035 to airports not under concession. In a response reported by Blu Radio, Aerocivil said the airport was excluded because, under its concession, “the obligations for maintenance, improvement and expansion of the airport infrastructure are the contractual responsibility of the concessionaire, financed with its own resources or through the remuneration mechanisms provided for in that contract.” Blu Radio reported that Medellín’s Olaya Herrera airport is also absent from the document, and that the Ernesto Cortissoz airport in Atlántico and the Alfonso Bonilla Aragón airport were not prioritized either. Concejo de Medellín (Medellín City Council) President Alejandro De Bedout called the exclusion “a political decision,” Blu Radio reported.

Noguera has placed the second runway outside the current concession and has asked local governments to begin buying the land around the airport. Aerocivil’s feasibility study for the runway covers 2025 through 2035, and the authority states that budgets for the master plan’s works still require separate authorization. Airplan’s contract expires in 2032.

Headline photo: The passenger terminal and apron at José María Córdova International Airport in Rionegro, Antioquia. (Photo courtesy Aerocivil)

New Ecopetrol Chief Inherits Thin Reserves and a Leadership Crisis

Joaquín Gutiérrez Caballero, who co-managed President Abelardo de la Espriella’s 2026 campaign, took over as chief executive of Ecopetrol (BVC: ECOPETROL; NYSE: EC) on Monday, September 28, four days after the board of Colombia’s majority state-owned oil company chose him unanimously. He replaces Alfonso Camilo Barco Muñoz, who had led the company on an interim basis since September 15.

Infobae reported that the career summary provided for his appointment lists no prior experience in the hydrocarbons sector. President de la Espriella set preserving the hydrocarbons business and replacing reserves as the first of two missions for the company, according to the Office of the President.

Gutiérrez’s Background and Ecopetrol’s Leadership Changes

Gutiérrez holds a business administration degree from the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, according to El Tiempo. Ecopetrol’s announcement lists postgraduate specializations in telecommunications project management, telecommunications law and healthcare services management, along with business experience in the legal, healthcare, construction, agriculture and cattle sectors.

El Tiempo reported that he worked as an adviser at the Fiscalía General de la Nación (Attorney General’s Office) under then-Attorney General Mario Iguarán, and that he has worked with de la Espriella since 2005. Infobae dates his arrival at the law firm De La Espriella Lawyers to 2006 and says he served as its deputy manager until 2009. According to Infobae, he also owns a residential developer in Bogotá and has invested in a clinic in Barranquilla, and he co-managed de la Espriella’s presidential campaign alongside Carlos Augusto Suárez Rojas. Ecopetrol’s board elected Suárez as its chairman at a September 17 session, according to El Colombiano. Suárez replaced Luis Felipe Henao Cardona in the chair, and Henao remains on the board.

Ricardo Roa Barragán, who managed former President Gustavo Petro’s 2022 campaign, stepped aside as Ecopetrol’s president in April, first on vacation and then on unpaid leave, according to Infobae, and left the post for good on July 30, as Finance Colombia reported. According to that report, the Attorney General’s Office filed an accusation of tráfico de influencias (influence peddling) against Roa on June 9 and a second accusation over 2022 campaign spending limits on August 12, and Roa has pleaded not guilty in both cases. Juan Carlos Hurtado Parra, who served as interim president during Roa’s absence, resigned and left on September 15 under what Ecopetrol described as a mutually agreed retirement plan, according to El Colombiano. Hurtado’s management had come under scrutiny over a 43-minute audio recording delivered to authorities, which opened a new line of investigation into alleged efforts to influence appointments and contracts at Ecopetrol, El Colombiano reported. The board had named Barco, the company’s corporate vice president of finance and sustainable value, as interim chief executive at a September 14 session.

The same period brought the replacement of five vice presidents and a renewed board approved at an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting on September 15, which seated six new directors and kept three from the previous board, according to El Tiempo. The Colombian government held 88.49% of Ecopetrol’s shares as of September 8, according to a Europa Press report published by Infobae.

Exploration and Fracking Top the Agenda

De la Espriella swore Gutiérrez in on September 25 at the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino in Santa Marta, at a ceremony the Office of the President called the Renacer de Ecopetrol (Rebirth of Ecopetrol). According to the Office of the President, de la Espriella said Ecopetrol closed 2025 with 1.944 billion barrels of oil equivalent in proven reserves and a reserve life of 7.8 years, with gas reserves covering 6.3 years. He said his government is reopening exploration and the signing of new contracts, including fracking, and argued that the energy transition must be built on a strong Ecopetrol rather than on its dismantling.

In his own remarks, Gutiérrez named exploration and reserve additions, gas supply, strengthening the hydrocarbons business in all its lines, the reliability of the energy system during climate events, and inherited high-impact tax and legal disputes as his core challenges, El Heraldo reported. He opened his speech with an assessment of the company’s situation.

“I assume the leadership of the most important company in the Republic at a moment of crisis, a turning point where there is no room for half-measures or hesitation.”

— Joaquín Gutiérrez Caballero, chief executive, Ecopetrol

Gutiérrez said the company will pursue conventional and unconventional projects and continue offshore exploration, according to El Colombiano. He gave separate figures for the country’s reserves as a whole: “The country faces a narrow energy horizon, with paltry reserves of just 7.4 years in oil and 5.9 years in gas.” He also said Ecopetrol will seek closer ties with the US government: “We will seek important alliances with the United States government to be included among the countries with favorable conditions for doing business, opening doors that allow us to increase oil and gas reserves.” He announced that Ecopetrol will open an alternate headquarters in Barranquilla.

The company will also undergo a forensic audit to verify allegations of looting, El Heraldo reported. El Tiempo reported that Ecopetrol’s production stood at 745,300 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2025 and that the company invested about $6.6 billion USD that year.

Ecopetrol said in its September 24 release that the board appointed Gutiérrez on a permanent basis and that the choice followed a selection process run by its Compensation, Nomination and Culture Committee under the company’s succession policy. Suárez was named chairman of that committee at the board’s September 17 session, according to El Colombiano. The company listed Gutiérrez’s priorities as value creation, rigorous and transparent management, and closer engagement with the Colombian state, local communities, investors and employees.

Headline photo: Joaquín Gutiérrez Caballero, who took over as chief executive of Ecopetrol on September 28, 2026. (Photo courtesy Ecopetrol)

De la Espriella Lifted the Hold Petro Placed During Peace Talks

Geovany Andrés Rojas, alias “Araña,” leader of the armed group Comandos de la Frontera and a participant in peace talks with the previous government, was extradited from Colombia to the United States on Friday, September 25, 2026, to face narco-terrorism and cocaine-trafficking charges in San Diego, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California. He was scheduled to make his initial appearance before US Magistrate Judge Steve B. Chu at 2 p.m. on Monday, September 28, 2026.

Rojas, 45, is one of five people whose extraditions President Abelardo de la Espriella ordered to proceed on August 26, 2026. The administration of former President Gustavo Petro had suspended those extraditions because the five were serving as representatives in peace processes with the government, as Finance Colombia reported in August. Only three of the five, Rojas among them, were in Colombian custody at the time of the order; the other two were fugitives, according to Cambio.

De la Espriella said on August 26 that he had found no verifiable contributions to peace from the five. Cambio quoted him as saying: “Dialogue processes cannot become refuges from justice, nor can the word ‘peace’ be used as a safe-conduct to preserve privileges while serious judicial demands remain pending.”

Two counts with mandatory minimums

A federal grand jury in the Southern District of California returned a two-count superseding indictment against Rojas on March 7, 2025, charging him with international conspiracy to distribute cocaine and with narco-terrorism. The conspiracy count carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison, and the narco-terrorism count carries a mandatory minimum of 20 years and up to life. The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as part of the California Homeland Security Task Force. The Justice Department noted that the charges are accusations and that Rojas is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The Justice Department described Comandos de la Frontera, which Rojas led and spoke for, as a paramilitary organization with an estimated 1,000 members operating in southwestern Colombia. It said a long-term investigation found the group profited from the cultivation and production of cocaine in one of Colombia’s top cocaine-producing regions and held its territory through weapons and violence. Infobae, citing authorities, reported that under his command the organization consolidated its presence in parts of the departments of Putumayo and Caquetá, and that the group’s operations were tied to cocaine trafficking and control of routes toward Ecuador.

DEA Administrator Terry Cole said in the Justice Department’s announcement: “Geovany Andrés Rojas faces narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges for allegedly orchestrating multi-ton cocaine shipments bound for the United States.”

US Attorney Adam Gordon said cocaine from Colombia’s armed groups “fueled the Mexican cartels pumping poison into our communities.”

“The Araña extradition sweeps away a web that starts in the mountains of Putumayo and ends in the brutal, cartel contested plazas of Tijuana.”

— US Attorney Adam Gordon, Southern District of California

From FARC signatory to the negotiating table

The Justice Department said Rojas was a member of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC) who signed the 2016 peace agreement before returning to arms, and that he publicly described Comandos de la Frontera as part of the Segunda Marquetalia, a group of former FARC combatants who rearmed after the accord. The US State Department designated the Segunda Marquetalia a foreign terrorist organization on December 1, 2021. According to Infobae, Rojas was born in Cali in 1981, was raised in Putumayo, joined the criminal gang Los Rastrojos in 2008 and the FARC two years later, and was designated a gestor de paz (peace facilitator) in 2017. Rojas has said in interviews that he took up arms again because he was “persecuted and intimidated by the police,” according to Infobae, which also reported that he held gestor de paz status at the time of his February 2025 arrest.

Colombian authorities detained Rojas on February 12, 2025, under an INTERPOL Red Notice based on narcotics offenses. Cambio reported at the time that investigators from the Fiscalía General de la Nación (Attorney General’s Office) took him from a Bogotá hotel after the third round of talks with the government ended. The delegation he belonged to represented the Coordinadora Nacional Ejército Bolivariano (National Coordinating Body of the Bolivarian Army), a structure formed after a split from the Segunda Marquetalia, according to Cambio. Then-Peace Commissioner Otty Patiño arrived at the hotel, questioned the operation and called it a trap set by the prosecutor’s office for the peace negotiations, Cambio reported.

The Corte Suprema de Justicia (Supreme Court of Justice) unanimously approved the extradition in October 2025, the Justice Department said, but Petro suspended it later that year while Rojas took part in a new round of talks between armed groups and the government.

Separate homicide charges in Colombia

On September 15, 2026, Blu Radio reported that the Fiscalía had charged Rojas in connection with 16 homicides committed in 13 armed attacks in Caquetá between 2020 and 2024. Colombian prosecutors allege Rojas ordered killings of people considered collaborators of other illegal groups or of the authorities, as well as peace agreement signatories and social leaders. Four of the victims were social leaders, according to Blu Radio. Rojas did not accept the charges.

The handover

The Justice Department said Rojas was handed over to US officials on the morning of September 25 under heavy security at a Colombian National Police air base in Bogotá, in a send-off attended by De la Espriella, and that he arrived in San Diego at 4:30 p.m. local time, accompanied by DEA and FBI agents. The US Marshals Service assisted with the transfer of custody and with transporting Rojas to the United States, the Justice Department said.

Infobae and El Heraldo placed the handover in Barranquilla rather than Bogotá. According to Infobae, a police convoy left La Picota prison in Bogotá at 3:50 a.m. and took Rojas to CATAM, the military airport of the Colombian Aerospace Force‘s Comando Aéreo de Transporte Militar (Military Air Transport Command). Citing Caracol Radio, Infobae said the transfer included a stop in Barranquilla. Infobae reported that Rojas arrived there at 9:45 a.m. and was taken to the Comando Aéreo de Combate No. 3 (Combat Air Command No. 3), and that De la Espriella was present for the formalities preceding the extradition. El Heraldo reported that officers of the National Police’s INTERPOL unit delivered him to the US Marshals and the DEA there, in a procedure that included a ceremony headed by De la Espriella, and that a chartered Falcon 2000 took off at 10:39 a.m. from the air command in Malambo, Atlántico, near Barranquilla.

Headline photo: Geovany Andrés Rojas, alias “Araña” (center), stands with US law enforcement officials after being extradited from Colombia to the United States. (Photo courtesy US Department of Justice)

Copper Sub-domain Test Shows 95% Copper and 94.4% Silver Recovery

Collective Mining Ltd. (Nasdaq: CNL; TSX: CNL) is advancing a two-route processing flowsheet for the Apollo deposit at its Guayabales Project in Caldas, Colombia. Most of the material would go through a conventional gravity and cyanidation plant producing gold-silver doré. Copper-rich and tungsten-rich material from two defined sub-domains would be routed to separate flotation circuits producing their own concentrates. The company outlined the design in a September 21, 2026, release that also reported new Copper Sub-Domain test results and head grades for the Tungsten Sub-Domain samples. Collective is working toward an environmental license application in the second half of 2027.

The flowsheet follows the company’s maiden Mineral Resource, published September 8, 2026. That estimate put Apollo at 37.0 million tons Indicated grading 2.17 grams per ton (g/t) gold equivalent (AuEq), or 2.58 million ounces AuEq, plus 48.2 million tons Inferred at 1.83 g/t AuEq, or 2.83 million ounces AuEq. The new work addresses how gold, silver, copper and tungsten would be recovered from different parts of the deposit.

Why Two Routes

According to the company, the broader deposit is predominantly gold and silver with low copper and tungsten grades, while higher-grade copper and tungsten mineralization is concentrated in two defined sub-domains. Outside the Copper Sub-Domain, copper averages 0.04% in the Indicated portion of the Mineral Resource and 0.02% in the Inferred portion. Material with low copper and low tungsten grades would go through gravity recovery and cyanidation to produce doré.

The Copper Sub-Domain holds 10.2 million tons of Indicated material grading 0.41% copper, 1.25 g/t gold, 56.0 g/t silver and 0.022% tungsten trioxide (WO₃), or about 27.6% of total Indicated tonnage. It also contains 0.81 million tons of Inferred material at 0.37% copper, 1.7% of the Inferred category. Higher-grade Copper Sub-Domain material would feed a copper flotation circuit making a concentrate with gold and silver credits. The flotation tailings would then be sent to cyanidation to recover the remaining gold and silver.

The Tungsten Sub-Domain is much smaller. It holds 2.57 million tons Indicated grading 0.10% WO₃, 1.38 g/t gold, 39.1 g/t silver and 0.39% copper, or 6.9% of Indicated tonnage, plus 0.05 million tons Inferred at 0.20% WO₃. A front-end gravity stage would separate tungsten-rich material for treatment in what the company calls a “small, dedicated” circuit using gravity concentration and flotation. Gold, silver and copper in that material would be separated and directed to the main processing circuit.

The two sub-domains are not mutually exclusive and may overlap, and Collective says their tonnages should not be added to each other or to the overall Mineral Resource because doing so could double-count material. The company describes both as subsets of the open-pit Mineral Resource and says it expects copper and tungsten production to come mainly from them.

The Test Results

All metallurgical samples were prepared and analyzed at the Kamloops, British Columbia, laboratory of ALS Canada Ltd. Composites came from the remaining half drill core of 32 Apollo holes. According to the company, ALS Canada conforms to ISO/IEC 17025, and the Kamloops laboratory is accredited by the Standards Council of Canada for the specific tests in the program.

Material / test stage	Head grades	Results	Source release
Apollo master composite / locked-cycle testing	1.4 g/t Au, 20 g/t Ag, 0.08% Cu	95% gold, 92% silver and 85% copper recovery; cyanide consumption of 0.57 kilograms per ton	Recoveries: August 25, 2026; cyanide figure: September 21, 2026
Copper Sub-Domain composite / open-circuit testing	1.16 g/t Au, 71 g/t Ag, 0.42% Cu	95% copper, 90% gold and 94.4% silver recovery via gravity, flotation and cyanidation; concentrate grading 27.2% Cu, 37.6 g/t Au and 3,504 g/t Ag	September 21, 2026
Tungsten Sub-Domain test work	2.91 g/t Au, 26.4 g/t Ag, 0.15% Cu, 0.44% WO3	Up to 74% tungsten recovery via gravity and flotation; separate bulk-sample testing produced a concentrate containing 95% scheelite	Recovery and scheelite results: August 25, 2026; Tungsten Sub-Domain head grades: September 21, 2026

The master composite results were first reported on August 25, 2026. That composite was built from drill core taken across roughly the top 1,000 meters of the deposit. The copper composite and the tungsten test samples were sourced specifically from their respective sub-domains. Earlier gold recovery work on the Apollo system, done before the deposit had a formal resource estimate, was covered by Finance Colombia.

The resource estimate’s gold-equivalent calculation assumes recoveries of 95% for gold, 92% for silver, 85% for copper and 70% for WO₃. The Copper Sub-Domain figures come from open-circuit testing. Locked-cycle testing of that material is the next step in the company’s metallurgical program.

“The higher-grade copper and tungsten sub-domains which are contained mostly within the Open Pit portion of the mineral resource will be selectively routed through dedicated flotation concentrate circuits designed to recover those metals.”

— Ned Jalil, chief executive officer, Collective Mining

Chief Executive Officer Ned Jalil, who approved the release’s technical information as a Qualified Person under Canada’s National Instrument 43-101, said the majority of the Mineral Resource “will be processed through a conventional cyanidation circuit with low reagent consumption to produce gold and silver doré.” He added: “The test work completed to date strongly supports this approach, and we are now optimizing the integrated flowsheet as we advance toward our planned 2027 licensing submission in Colombia.” Collective named Jalil chief executive in April 2025, with Omar Ossma remaining president.

What Comes Next

The next phase of metallurgical work will include locked-cycle testing of higher-grade Copper Sub-Domain material, variability testing and optimization of the tungsten circuit. The goal is to confirm circuit configuration, recoveries, reagent requirements and concentrate specifications. Collective says the final flowsheet design and performance parameters depend on completing the metallurgical and engineering programs.

Collective laid out the following milestones, among others, with the resource estimate:

• construction of an underground exploration adit starting in the fourth quarter of 2026
• an environmental license application in the second half of 2027
• an updated resource estimate in the first quarter of 2028
• a Preliminary Economic Assessment and an expected license decision in the second half of 2028
• a Feasibility Study by mid-2029
• the start of early works and construction in the second half of 2029

Executive Chairman Ari Sussman said at the time that the company was accelerating environmental baseline, engineering and permitting studies alongside exploration. In the same release, he stated: “Our priority is to grow the resource and establish the technical and environmental basis for development, subject to study results, financing and the required approvals.”

Collective says it has drilled more than 42,000 meters at Apollo since the March 31, 2026, database cut-off used for the maiden estimate, and none of that drilling is included in the current Mineral Resource. The September 8 release lists hole APC-162, announced on June 29, 2026, among selected drill results not included in the Mineral Resource. APC-162 returned 27.35 meters grading 1.68% WO₃, 11.62 g/t gold, 54 g/t silver and 0.43% copper from 336.40 meters downhole, which the company expresses as 2.51% WO₃ equivalent. Finance Colombia reported the intercept at the time. The company’s tungsten cross-section places the intercept below the modeled Tungsten Sub-Domain and labels it “Not included in MR.”

Resource Context and Caveats

The Indicated Mineral Resource contains 1.64 million ounces of gold, 29.0 million ounces of silver, 115 million pounds of copper and 3,887 tons of WO₃. The Inferred Mineral Resource adds 2.47 million ounces of gold, 13.0 million ounces of silver, 32 million pounds of copper and 1,081 tons of WO₃. The gold-equivalent calculation assumes gold at $3,000 USD per ounce, silver at $60 USD per ounce, copper at $5.25 USD per pound and WO₃ at $93.31 USD per pound.

The estimate is classified under the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) Definition Standards. The company notes that Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability, and that the conceptual pit shell and underground shapes used to constrain the estimate are not engineered mine designs or an economic study.

Location and Background

The Apollo deposit lies about 1.75 kilometers northwest of the Marmato mine operated by Aris Mining (NYSE: ARIS; TSX: ARIS). Collective has secured additional mining titles at the project following public hearings in Supía and Marmato. According to the company, its founding team previously developed Continental Gold, which Sussman says discovered the Buriticá deposit in Antioquia. Zijin Mining Group (SSE: 601899; HKEX: 2899) agreed to acquire Continental Gold in a transaction announced December 2, 2019, with a total equity value of approximately $1.4 billion CAD on a fully diluted basis.

Headline photo: A Collective Mining team member examines a rock sample with a hand lens as two others look on. (Photo courtesy Collective Mining)

New funding targets Quindío’s earthquake-hit tourism economy

Colombia’s national government will direct more than $3 billion COP toward tourism and small-business recovery in Quindío department, President Abelardo de la Espriella announced on September 11, 2026, at the Panaca agricultural theme park in Quimbaya, a month after an earthquake damaged tourism infrastructure across the region. At the same event, de la Espriella said tourism in Colombia’s coffee region would be made state policy, according to the Presidency.

Grants for Damaged Businesses

Fontur, Colombia’s national tourism fund (Fondo Nacional de Turismo), accounts for the largest share: $2 billion COP to support the recovery of 107 tourism establishments in the municipalities of Filandia and Circasia that were damaged in the earthquake, with the funds meant to help hotels, restaurants and other tourism-chain businesses restore their operating capacity. A separate $1 billion COP from iNNpulsa Colombia, the government’s national entrepreneurship agency, will support affected micro-businesses and informal businesses; each beneficiary can receive a grant of up to $5 million COP toward recovering their productive activities.

The measures will be carried out through the Ministerio de Comercio, Industria y Turismo (Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, or MinCIT), according to the Presidency. “We are standing with Quindío with concrete actions to rebuild its productive base and protect the opportunities of thousands of families who depend on tourism,” said Mauricio Gómez Amín, the minister of commerce, industry and tourism, in a ministry statement.

“Our goal is to accelerate the recovery, open new investment opportunities and get tourism growing again with greater strength in the department.”

— Mauricio Gómez Amín, Colombia’s minister of commerce, industry and tourism

Tax Incentives and an Investment Round

The government is studying a reduction of the value-added tax, or IVA, on airfare to and from the areas hit by the earthquake. “We are reviewing the fiscal impact, but I fully intend to do it,” de la Espriella said, according to the Presidency’s transcript of his remarks.

De la Espriella also said tourism infrastructure has already been made eligible for Obras por Impuestos (“Works for Taxes”), a mechanism administered through the Agencia de Renovación del Territorio (Territorial Renewal Agency, or ART) that lets companies offset tax obligations by funding public works. “Everything that has fallen, we are going to rebuild with Obras por Impuestos,” he said, adding that the decision opens the door for domestic and foreign private companies to invest in the department. He asked Gómez Amín to organize, before the end of the year, an investment round for international and domestic investors in Quindío, with special incentives from the government, possibly hosted at Panaca.

De la Espriella asked Panaca founder Jorge Ballén Franco to serve as an unpaid adviser and said the government would use the economic-emergency decrees to review how to address some of the sector’s shortcomings, with the aim of later enacting the measures into law. The government, working with UN Tourism (ONU Turismo in Spanish), has also secured 100 scholarships to strengthen the skills of Quindío’s tourism workers.

De la Espriella urged Colombians to visit the department: “Come to Quindío, travel through its towns, enjoy its magnificent hotel offerings, eat its wonderful food in the restaurants, buy its products, visit its parks and its coffee farms, enjoy these landscapes, these trails, these mountains,” he said. “Every tourist who arrives helps a business breathe, a job survive and a family keep going.”

The Earthquake’s Toll

The earthquake struck August 10 with a magnitude of 7.4, according to El Tiempo, with an epicenter in Chocó department. The Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (National Disaster Risk Management Unit, or UNGRD) reported 335 deaths, 4,516 injuries and 105 people still missing as of September 15, with 303,934 families affected in 500 municipalities across 16 departments, according to El Heraldo. Quindío is one of five departments, along with Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Risaralda and Caldas, where de la Espriella said a private firm’s preliminary estimate put combined direct physical losses at close to $30 trillion COP, according to a separate El Tiempo report. Insurers’ earthquake claims had reached $3.7 trillion COP a month after the disaster, Finance Colombia reported.

Quindío sits at the center of Colombia’s coffee-growing region, part of the Paisaje Cultural Cafetero (Coffee Cultural Landscape) that UNESCO designated a World Heritage site in 2011. “Tourism drives a large part of Quindío’s economic life,” de la Espriella said, citing the hotels, restaurants, coffee farms, parks, transport operators and artisans that depend on it.

Headline photo: President Abelardo de la Espriella at the tourism-recovery event in Quimbaya, Quindío, on September 11, 2026. (Photo courtesy Presidencia de la República)

EPM’s third AFD loan brings a first-of-its-kind rate incentive

Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) signed its third credit agreement with the French Development Agency (Agence Française de Développement, or AFD) on September 11, 2026, securing $348.69 million USD to help finance the utility’s investment plan for its water, energy and wastewater businesses. The credit runs 15 years with a three-year grace period, and EPM said that, for the first time in Colombia, AFD will apply a mechanism that lowers the interest rate if the borrower outperforms sustainability indicators agreed in the contract.

The proceeds are earmarked for EPM’s broader investment plan, which the company says prioritizes climate-change mitigation and adaptation, renewable-energy development, protection of water resources and biodiversity, expanded access to public services and gender-equality initiatives. EPM said the financing will accelerate infrastructure expansion, modernization and maintenance projects concentrated in its Water Provision, Wastewater Management, and Energy Generation, Transmission and Distribution businesses.

“These resources will allow us to continue modernizing our infrastructure, strengthen our systems’ capacity to respond, and ensure the continuity of services that contribute to the well-being and development of the territories.”

— John Maya Salazar, general manager of EPM

The loan is priced at Term SOFR plus a margin, according to EPM. Term SOFR is a forward-looking rate based on the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR), which the Alternative Reference Rates Committee recommended as the replacement for US dollar Libor. AFD said the loan is senior debt, with disbursements linked to EPM meeting sustainability indicators, and that the agreement rewards EPM’s performance through a reduction in the interest rate.

“This partnership reaffirms our support for EPM as a benchmark for sustainable development in Colombia and Latin America, combining financing, technical cooperation and international standards that make it possible to generate verifiable environmental and social impacts aligned with the strategic challenges of the company and the country,” said Lorena Chara, AFD’s country director in Colombia.

EPM said that, as is customary in AFD operations, the financing also includes technical-cooperation resources, directed at three areas:

• Strengthening EPM’s technical capacity in sediment management and reservoir “flushing” operations at its hydroelectric plants, aimed at improving the efficiency, safety and sustainability of that infrastructure;
• Adapting international experience in modernizing and securing water-distribution networks, digitalizing public services, innovation and developing “smart territory” projects; and
• Building a corporate framework for prioritizing voluntary environmental investments based on measurable environmental and social impact.

The cooperation builds on a technical mission to Paris, Angers and Nantes on March 8–14, 2026, which EPM said was carried out under the then-pending third credit. “The technical exchange with French institutions and companies leaves us with lessons that strengthen our capabilities and help us keep making informed, responsible, long-term decisions, always with the goal of providing more efficient, safe and reliable public services for the communities and territories where we operate,” said Alejandro Escudero Sañudo, head of water and sewerage information management at EPM.

The September 11 signing is EPM’s third credit operation with AFD. The first, in August 2012, provided $338 million USD for power generation, transmission and distribution projects along with gas infrastructure. The second, signed March 16, 2023, and previously reported by Finance Colombia, provided $189.8 million USD over 10 years, including a three-year grace period, priced at SOFR plus a spread, to partly finance water, sanitation and energy investments including photovoltaic generation, efficiency improvements in transmission and distribution networks, rural electrification and street lighting, according to EPM. Combined, the three operations total $876.49 million USD in AFD financing for EPM since 2012.

EPM said it expects to reach carbon neutrality in its Generation and Transmission and Distribution of Energy businesses in the second half of 2026, with its remaining business lines and support areas following in 2027. The company ties that push to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 6 and 7, covering clean water and sanitation and affordable, clean energy, and to its commitments under the Paris Agreement.

EPM, founded in 1955, is wholly owned by the District of Medellín and provides electricity, piped natural gas, and water and sanitation services. The company says it serves 21.11% of Colombia’s electricity demand and operates 25 hydroelectric plants, and the EPM Group reported 2024 investments of $5.6 trillion COP in projects aimed at improving public services for more than 9 million people. Its largest asset under construction is Hidroituango on the Cauca River, which EPM describes as Colombia’s largest power-generation project. As of December 2025, four of the plant’s eight 300-megawatt units were running; units five through seven were scheduled to start in the second half of 2027 and the last unit in the first quarter of 2028, according to El Colombiano.

AFD Group is France’s public development-finance institution, active in Colombia since 2009. It operates through three units: Agence Française de Développement handles public-sector financing; Proparco finances private-sector investment; and Expertise France provides technical cooperation. The group says it has more than 4,000 projects aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Headline photo: An aerial view of EPM’s La Ayura water-treatment plant during its expansion. (Photo courtesy EPM)