BOGOTÁ: Venezuela’s state oil company is temporarily halting natural-gas exports across the border to Colombia, citing climate factors and the need to generate electricity, the Colombian government said Friday.
Petróleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA. notified the ministry that supplies would be suspended as of Friday because of “the behavior of electrical energy generation due to climatic variability,” Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy said.
A drought has been affecting the region, though the ministry didn’t specifically mention that. An agreement between the two countries calls for Venezuela to send 39 million cubic feet of gas a day to Colombia, about 3% of Colombia’s supply.
Tensions between Colombia and its neighbor boiled over in August, when President Nicolás Maduro cracked down on undocumented Colombians residing in Venezuela and closed the border. The countries agreed in September to normalize relations and gradually reopen the border.
Venezuela has large natural-gas reserves, second only to those in the U.S. in the Americas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. However, Venezuela has been consuming more than it produces in recent years and has been trying to upgrade its infrastructure, the EIA said.
