Colombia’s second-longest pipeline, the Caño Limon, was bombed by leftist rebels Friday morning and pumping remains halted following an earlier attack one week ago on the same pipeline, an official at national oil company Ecopetrol said.
The pipeline, which can pump 220,000 barrels a day of crude oil but which over the past year has averaged closer to 80,000 barrels a day, is expected to resume pumping once the damages from the two dynamite attacks, which are located in different sections of the 771-kilometer pipeline, are repaired.
Repairs to the pipeline normally take between a few days and one week, as armed forces must first secure the area before repair crews are allowed to enter.
The pipeline carries oil to Colombia’s Caribbean coast for export from the northeastern Caño Limon field, which is controlled by Ecopetrol and U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum Corp..
Discovered by Occidental in 1983, the field is one of Colombia’s oldest and has so far produced more than one billion barrels of oil.