The Cano Limon pipeline in Colombia runs 780 kilometers from the oil fields in northeastern Arauca department near the Venezuelan border to the Caribbean port of Covenas. Cano Limon is jointly operated by the Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol and the U.S. oil company Occidental Petroleum. It can transport up to 230,000 barrels of oil per day.

The pipeline has been a favorite target for attack by leftist guerrillas from Colombia's second-largest insurgent group, the National Liberation Army (ELN). In 1999 the pipeline was sabotaged 79 times, with a total of 200,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the surrounding jungle. In less than a three-month period between July and September 2000, ELN guerrillas launched 22 attacks on the pipeline with an overall spillage of 150,000 barrels. Some of the attacks on the Cano Limon pipeline have led to spilled crude oil flowing down rivers and across the border into Venezuela.

According to Occidental Petroleum, the pipeline has been attacked more than 700 times since its construction in 1986, with the ruptures resulting in an overall spillage of 2.2 million barrels of oil into the surrounding ecosystem.

The Cano Limon pipeline is not the only one to have been attacked in Colombia. On February 8, 2000, for example, guerrillas attacked the Ocensa (Oleoducto Central) oil pipeline that runs between the Cusiana/Cupiagua oil field in the eastern Andes foothills and the port of Covenas. The attack caused both the spillage of an undetermined amount of crude oil and a forest fire.

The economic impact on Colombia of such attacks that temporarily halt oil production is also significant. With a daily oil production in 1999 of 743,000 barrels per day, Colombia earned about $3.7 billion dollars from oil exports. Oil has become the country's leading source of export revenue, followed by coffee and coal.