Colombia's Cocaine Trade Now Outearns Its Oil Exports
SpaceX Wants to Fuel Its Mars Ambitions With Its Own Gas Pipeline Drug lords in Colombia are making more money from cocaine than the government is making from crude oil sales, a report from a Colombian university has found.
At $16.5 billion for 2024, cocaine revenues surpassed oil export revenues, which stood at around $15 billion that year, UPIreported, citing the research from EAFIT University.
Oil export revenues, however,remainColombia’s largest export revenue generator, the research showed.
Together with coal exports, oil exceeds the illicit trade in cocaine.
Still, cocaine revenues in 2024 were equal to 4.4% of Colombia’s gross domestic product—because output surged.
“It is not that cocaine has become more expensive in the domestic market.
What we are seeing is a massive increase in the volume of pure production,” one of the authors of the research, economist Santiago Tobon, said.
Oil production in the South American country, meanwhile, has been on a consistent decline.
State oil company Ecopetrol said earlier this year it expected average production of between 730,000 and 740,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily this year, which would be down from over 750,000 barrels daily as of the first half of 2025—and as much as1.03 million barrelsdaily back in 2015.
But that was before the Strait of Hormuz shut down for business and prices soared.
When that happened, Ecopetrol’s chief executive said the companymight adjustits capital expenditure plans for the year.
Now thatoil pricesare back to pre-war levels, the adjustment may not need to be made.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
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