Colombia's Cano Limon oil pipeline attacked for 12th time in 2019

Colombia's Cano Limon oil pipeline was bombed on Friday in eastern Norte de Santander province, state-run oil company Ecopetrol said, the 12th time it has been attacked this year. Explosive devices were detonated along the pipeline in a rural area of Teorama municipality near the border with Venezuela. Oil was spilled into a nearby river, Ecopetrol said in a statement.

There have been more than a dozen attacks on Colombian pipelines so far in 2019, eleven of them on Cano Limon. There were more than 80 attacks on the 485-mile (780-km) pipeline in 2018, which kept it offline for most of the year. Although Ecopetrol does not usually name groups responsible, oil infrastructure bombings are regularly carried out by leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

The ELN opposes multinational companies, saying they seize natural resources without benefiting Colombians.