Colombia Election Weighs On Future of Oil Sector

PUERTO WILCHES, Colombia—In a baking-hot town in the middle of vast palm-tree plantations, engineers and geologists are preparing a pilot fracking program that they say could keep Colombia energy-independent for decades while increasing exports to the U.S.

But the project—as well as Colombia’s oil industry itself—could enter a rocky period after Sunday’s presidential elections, in which voters will choose between two antiestablishment candidates who say they oppose fracking and favor transitioning toward renewable energy sources.