The BBC World Service has reported that Colombia’s state oil company, Ecopetrol, has polluted “hundreds of sites” with oil spills. These affected areas include wells, water sources, and wetlands.
The British broadcaster’s investigation is based on leaked data from a former employee, who provided more than 800 records documenting environmental damage caused by oil pollution between 1989 and 2018.
According to the whistleblower, Ecopetrol concealed much of this environmental impact, officially acknowledging only about one-fifth of the cases.
BBC reports that Ecopetrol polluted up to 800 natural areas in Colombia
The BBC World Service has reported that Ecopetrol, Colombia’s state-majority-owned oil company, may have polluted hundreds of natural areas across the country between 1989 and 2018.
The investigation is based on information provided by former Ecopetrol employee Andrés Olarte, who acted as a whistleblower for the British media. Olarte allegedly presented documents proving up to 800 oil spills in areas ranging from wetlands to water wells.
Among the leaked documents is a database from January 2019 listing 839 cases of so-called “unresolved environmental impacts” across Colombia. Ecopetrol uses this term to describe areas where oil contamination in soil and water has not been fully remediated. According to the data, some of these sites had remained polluted for more than a decade as of 2019.
Olarte claims the company attempted to conceal some of these incidents from Colombian authorities, with around one-fifth of the records marked as “only known to Ecopetrol.”
“There’s a category in the Excel file that indicates what is hidden from authorities and what is not, showing the process of withholding information from the government,” Olarte stated.
In June last year, the BBC visited one of the sites marked as “only known to Ecopetrol” and listed in the database since 2017. Seven years later, the British outlet reported finding “a thick, black, oily substance, surrounded by plastic containment barriers, visible at the edge of a section of the wetland.”
Ecopetrol denies the accusations
Ecopetrol responded by stating that it “fully complies with Colombian legislation and follows industry-leading sustainability practices.”
Felipe Bayón, who served as the company’s CEO from 2017 to 2023, spoke to the BBC to “categorically” deny any suggestion that Ecopetrol had a policy of withholding information about environmental contamination.
“I can say with full confidence that there is no, and never was, any policy or directive stating, ‘these things cannot be shared,’” Bayón told the British media outlet.
He further argued that many of the spills were caused by repeated sabotage from illegal armed groups, particularly the ELN guerrillas. Bayón also stated that he believes there has been “significant progress” in addressing the causes of oil pollution.
Impact on fishing and Colombian families livelihood
The oil spills have severely impacted rivers, disrupting fishing and the livelihoods of families who depend on it. Residents near the Magdalena River report that oil contamination is harming the river’s wildlife.
The affected area is home to river turtles, manatees—gentle herbivorous mammals that feed along riverbanks—and spider monkeys, an endangered species. Additionally, the nearby wetlands include a protected habitat for jaguars.
During its 2024 visit, the BBC collected testimonies from families fishing in canals crossed by pipelines. One fisherman reported that some of the fish they caught released “a pungent smell of crude oil as they cooked.”
The BBC journalists also observed vegetation floating in the river, coated in traces of oil.
Ecopetrol: Colombia’s oil and economic giant
Ecopetrol is Colombia’s largest company and the third-largest oil refiner in Latin America, behind Brazil’s Petrobras and Mexico’s Pemex. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000 ranking, it was listed as the 313th largest public company in the world.
The company’s main refinery is in Barrancabermeja, Santander, about 260 kilometers north of Bogotá. This massive complex of processing plants, industrial stacks, and storage tanks stretches nearly two kilometers along the banks of the Magdalena River, a crucial water source for millions of people.
Andrés Olarte, the former whistleblower and an advisor to Ecopetrol’s CEO between 2017 and 2019, says he raised concerns with company managers about what he describes as “horrendous” contamination data. According to Olarte, executives dismissed his concerns with remarks like, “Why are they asking these questions? They don’t understand what this job is about.”
Olarte left Ecopetrol six years ago and later shared extensive company data with the U.S.-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the BBC. The British outlet verified that the information originated from Ecopetrol’s servers.
Studies reviewed by the BBC indicate that Ecopetrol has continued polluting. Data from Colombia’s environmental regulator, the National Environmental Licensing Authority (Anla), shows the company has reported hundreds of oil spills per year since 2020.