Colombia's Diesel Is No Longer Just a Fuel. It Is a National Security Issue.

The Colombian Oil and Gas Association (ACP) published a report this week that reframes the energy conversation in Colombia entirely. The document, titled "Liquid Fuels: Pillar of Energy Security 2025-2031” makes an argument that industrial operators cannot afford to ignore: diesel is no longer simply an operational input. It is a strategic national resource that the country's power grid may depend on to avoid blackouts.

The projection is precise. In an extreme El Niño scenario, diesel would need to cover 9 percent of Colombia's electricity generation to keep the lights on. With 70 percent of the country's power coming from hydroelectric sources, a severe drought does not just create water scarcity. It creates an electricity emergency that falls directly on thermal generation powered by diesel. The system's backup plan, in other words, runs on the same fuel that mines, factories, logistics fleets, and remote industrial operations depend on every day.

At the same time, the Association warns that Colombia will need to import 50 percent of its gasoline by 2031, and that the Fuel Price Stabilization Fund is already carrying a deficit of 6 trillion pesos. The mechanism that has historically cushioned fuel price shocks is running out of room. The consequences are already visible: Cerro Matoso, one of the country's largest mining operations, reduced its production to half capacity this week due to energy shortages.

This is what a national security problem looks like in practice. Not an abstract policy risk but a major industrial operation cutting output in half because the energy it needs is no longer reliably available.

Industrial operators cannot compete with a grid emergency for the same diesel

When a government declares that diesel is needed to prevent national blackouts, it is telling industrial operators something important: the fuel they depend on to run their own operations is now competing with the electricity system for priority. In a supply-constrained environment, that is not a competition industrial operators can win through purchasing contracts or logistics planning.

The only position that puts an operator completely outside that competition is producing their own fuel. Not buying it from a market that is simultaneously serving a national grid emergency, but converting the crude or condensate already available at or near their operation into diesel on-site, before anyone else gets to it.

Think Energy's modular processing plants do exactly that. A facility deployed at the point of crude production converts feedstock into ultra-low-sulfur diesel in 90 to 120 days, with no dependence on the national supply chain, the Fuel Price Stabilization Fund, or the market dynamics that the Association describes as structurally compromised through at least 2031. The operator's fuel cost becomes a local production decision, not a function of whether the country's backup power plan is drawing from the same pool.

The Association's report is the most authoritative Colombian institution confirming what Think Energy was built around: liquid fuels are the pillar of energy security in this country, and the operators who control their own supply are in a categorically different position from those who do not.

If your operation is in Colombia and runs on purchased diesel with access to crude or condensate, Think Energy can show you exactly what on-site processing would cost versus what you are paying today. Reach out at gothinkenergy.com.