Between the jungle and the oil: The Amazon municipality to which Colombia owes an energy transition

In Orito, Putumayo, a Colombian municipality in the Amazon foothills, the classic tourist sign reading “I love” followed by the place name is set against a backdrop of a pumpjack and an abandoned well: Orito 119. The horsehead of the rig — the part that looks like a hammer — is painted to resemble a toucan’s beak: an image that encapsulates the town’s dynamics. Located in the Amazon rainforest, crude oil extraction has been part of its backbone since its founding.

The Orito 1 well, which gave the town its name, was the first to be drilled in the Putumayo department, in 1963, and just 15 years later, in 1978 — following pressure from settlers who migrated there seeking work and to use the royalties generated by extractive activity — the state formally recognized the town. Its longtime popular nickname was “Orito, the oil capital of Putumayo”: that is, the capital of a department that, even in 2026, is Colombia’s sixth-largest crude producer, according to one outlet Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH).