Ecopetrol (BVC: ECOPETROL; NYSE: EC) has asked Colombia’s Fiscalía General de la Nación (Attorney General’s Office) to investigate how it awarded the contract behind the Regasificadora del Pacífico, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import project being built to receive LNG in Buenaventura and regasify it in Buga, in the Valle del Cauca department. Ecopetrol filed the complaint on September 2, 2026, according to El Tiempo, whose investigative unit reported it on September 27. The project, which El Tiempo reported is valued at $172 million USD and expected to begin operating around mid-November, was awarded to Puertos, Inversiones y Obras S.A.S. (PIO S.A.S.) during the government of former President Gustavo Petro, while Ricardo Roa was Ecopetrol’s president.

According to El Tiempo, the filing is one chapter of a group of macrocasos (large-scale cases) being pursued by Ecopetrol’s internal audit. It seeks to establish or rule out irregularities in the award, possible tráfico de influencias (influence peddling), conflicts of interest, precontractual or contractual modifications, and a possible failure to apply penalties for delays. El Tiempo reported that the case began to move about six months before its report, when the newspaper revealed a group of companies linked to Bayron Triana, at the time Ecopetrol’s vice president for the energy transition, whom it described as close to Roa. El Tiempo’s report closes by stating that the Fiscalía is investigating. Portafolio, which carried the story the same day, reported that those involved have denied any irregular conduct.

The Contract Under Review

Ecopetrol announced on March 4, 2025, that it had awarded and signed its first regasification services contract with PIO S.A.S., for 60 million cubic feet per day (MMcfd) of capacity, to add a new source of supply for natural gas demand in Colombia’s interior. The company said at the time that the project would enter operation in the second quarter of 2026. In a September 1, 2025, statement, Ecopetrol said it had run “public and competitive processes” since 2024 and that the Pacific process drew 18 expressions of interest and eight binding offers. It said the project would enter operation in August 2026. La República reported that Ecopetrol had planned for operations to begin on August 1, 2026.

The Regasificadora del Pacífico’s financing page lists a February 28, 2025, signing date, a term of five years from the start of operations with an option for three more, and take-or-pay terms for the contracted capacity, with take-and-pay terms for volumes above it.

Conflicting Accounts of the Invitation

Óscar Isaza Benjumea, the owner and founder of PIO S.A.S. and president of the Regasificadora del Pacífico, told El Tiempo that David Riaño, then Ecopetrol’s vice president for the energy transition, called him in 2024, described the project and invited him to take part. Riaño denied making that call. He told El Tiempo that staff in the office of Ecopetrol’s president, then Roa, asked him to meet on August 16, 2024, with a group of businesspeople who had projects on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts: “I didn’t call anyone; I only listened. Two weeks later the process opened. It was assigned to the transition projects management office, where Bayron Triana was in charge, and the logistics vice presidency awarded it.”

Isaza defended the result to El Tiempo: “I beat more than one [competitor]. We offered the best price per million cubic feet, the best technical proposal and the shortest delivery time, with no advance payment.” In an interview with El País of Cali published September 27, he said: “It began in 2024, when Ecopetrol invited us to participate in a closed call. It was a plurilateral invitation.” He added that the company was given six days to decide whether to bid.

Overlapping Roles and Denials

El Tiempo’s report also examined the roles of Einstein Mauricio Gómez Machado, an engineer who has served since 2025 as consejero delegado (delegated board director) of the Regasificadora del Pacífico and whom the newspaper also described as Isaza’s adviser. The newspaper listed his earlier roles as commissioner of the Comisión de Regulación de Energía y Gas (Energy and Gas Regulatory Commission, CREG) in 2012, adviser to PIO in 2018, candidate for Ecopetrol’s commercial vice presidency in 2024 and CREG contractor in 2024, and said the question being raised is whether, in those roles, he may have incurred a conflict of interest. El Tiempo also reported that Gómez was Triana’s boss at the CREG, and that Gómez’s firm, Consultoría Regulatoria, had a 2025 contract with E-Nlighten S.A.S., a company El Tiempo described as linked to Triana. Gómez told El Tiempo that he knew Triana as he knew many other Ecopetrol officials, because the sector is very small, and he noted that the CREG had issued its resolution on the need to import gas through the Pacific and the Caribbean on June 8, 2012, before he joined the commission on July 19. A project summary dated September 16, 2026, which the Regasificadora del Pacífico prepared and Finance Colombia reviewed, lists Consultoría Regulatoria among the project’s advisers, for regulatory work.

Gómez acknowledged to El Tiempo that after what the newspaper called his failed bid to join Ecopetrol, he advised the CREG under a contract worth about $1 billion COP, and that in that work he mentioned the Pacific regasification project. He said he never intervened in decisions tied to the project and joined it after it had been awarded. Isaza told El Tiempo that he had asked Gómez to stay out of the process while Gómez was seeking the Ecopetrol post: “I told Mauricio to stay out of the tender. Later I learned he was not appointed.” Gómez gave a different account of that outcome: “After consulting with friends, I did not accept being at that Ecopetrol.”

Triana has also denied any wrongdoing, according to El Tiempo. He has attributed the anonymous accusations and complaints against him to a smear campaign over his refusal to give in to pressure from the Casa de Nariño, the presidential palace, to sign off on a gas purchase through Ecopetrol’s Houston office as the Petro government was ending. Triana and Roa both left Ecopetrol in a July 30, 2026, leadership reshuffle, Finance Colombia reported, citing El Tiempo. Joaquín Gutiérrez Caballero took over as Ecopetrol’s president on September 28.

El Tiempo’s report did not include comment from Roa or from Ecopetrol. The newspaper also asked Isaza about an account that bribes of 4 cents USD per million cubic feet traded had been demanded from inside Ecopetrol in connection with the award. El Tiempo did not name a source for that account or say whether it forms part of Ecopetrol’s complaint. Isaza rejected it, telling El Tiempo that no one had ever demanded anything from him.

“No one has ever demanded anything from me. I have an impeccable track record. Let them come in and search. There is no shadow of doubt over the project.”

— Óscar Isaza Benjumea, owner and founder of PIO S.A.S., speaking to El Tiempo

Delays and Penalties

The project should have begun operating on August 1 and is running almost two months behind schedule without any penalty having been applied, El Tiempo reported, although the contract sets fines of $200,000 USD per day, deducted from invoices. Isaza told the newspaper that the delay is only 45 days, explaining that the contract gives the company two months’ grace without fines, and he attributed it to factors outside PIO’s control, including the magnitude 7.4 earthquake of August 10: “The war in Iran has disrupted logistics; the earthquake left the port of Buenaventura out of service for five days, there were road closures and a typhoon in China, where ‘Tura’ [the project’s floating storage unit] was. And the ship carrying the tanks was supposed to arrive in May, but it arrived on July 22, and we unloaded on August 19 because of port congestion.” According to El Tiempo’s September 27 report, Ecopetrol has accepted only two of the 45 days, and if PIO cannot justify the rest, fines and arbitration would follow.

Isaza Cites Bank Financing and an Ecopetrol Communication

In his interview with El País, Isaza said: “First I want to make something very clear: there is no Ecopetrol money here. Zero. There isn’t a single peso from Ecopetrol. All the risk is contractor risk and bank risk.” He named the Financiera de Desarrollo Nacional (FDN), BTG Pactual (B3: BPAC11) and Banco de Occidente (BVC: OCCIDENTE) as the project’s lenders, and said that the banks and PIO together are investing about $1 trillion COP. “If we don’t start up, no regasification is billed. Absolutely nothing is billed,” he said. Forbes Colombia reported on February 10, 2026, that the project had closed a $130 million USD senior debt financing with the FDN and BTG Pactual each contributing up to $65 million USD, backed by the long-term take-or-pay contract with Ecopetrol. The Regasificadora del Pacífico’s September 16 project summary lists Banco de Occidente alongside the FDN and BTG Pactual as senior lenders on the $130 million USD facility; the Forbes Colombia report did not mention Banco de Occidente.

Isaza also told El País that “Ecopetrol sent us a communication ratifying that the process was transparent and that all the established parameters were met.” The same summary carries a box headed “Contratación certificada por Ecopetrol” (contracting certified by Ecopetrol). It cites an August 20, 2026, communication from Ecopetrol to the company as stating that the contract resulted from a process Ecopetrol conducted under a plurilateral negotiation methodology, in strict compliance with principles that include efficiency, equality, morality and publicity. Finance Colombia has not seen the Ecopetrol communication itself.

Startup Schedule and Gas Supply

When Finance Colombia visited the regasification plant site in El Vínculo, a rural district of Guadalajara de Buga, on September 29, storage tanks bearing the Regasificadora del Pacífico name stood on concrete supports, and cranes and workers were on site. Nearby stood a white enclosure labeled CIMC Enric (HKEX: 3899), which the same project summary lists as an engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the Buga plant.

The project’s general manager, Jesús Urías, said in September, according to Valora Analitik, that the first phase will deliver up to 90 MMcfd, of which 60 MMcfd is contracted to Ecopetrol and 20 MMcfd to Alcanos. The same summary puts the first phase’s investment at $170 million USD and the total at $290 million USD including a second phase. El País reported on October 1 that the Tura was due in Buenaventura on October 9, and that the company plans to begin commercial operation in the second half of November. In his September 27 interview, Isaza said that he expects operations to begin between November 15 and December 1. El Tiempo reported that Ecopetrol is still negotiating the purchase of the LNG itself.

El País’s October 1 report noted that the startup follows the scheduled gas rationing the government declared in September after a technical failure at the Cartagena regasification terminal. Semana reported on September 25 that the Ministerio de Minas y Energía (Ministry of Mines and Energy) had declared the measure because of a technical problem at the SPEC LNG terminal in Cartagena, and the ministry said the rationing ended at 11:59 p.m. on September 29, after corrective work restored the terminal’s full regasification capacity of 475 MMcfd.

Headline photo: Storage tanks at the Regasificadora del Pacífico regasification plant under construction in El Vínculo, Guadalajara de Buga, on September 29, 2026. (Photo: Loren Moss / Finance Colombia)