COLOMBIAN President Gustavo Petro ordered the state-run oil company Ecopetrol to cancel a joint venture with a United States-owned company, citing environmental concerns on Tuesday.

In a nationally televised speech, Mr Petro said he opposed the recent extension of a deal between Ecopetrol and Occidental Petroleum because it involved extracting oil through fracking.

Fracking is a controversial technique, used to extract oil and gas from shale rock, criticised by many environmental groups for polluting water sources and causing earth tremors.

“I want that operation to be sold, and for the money to be invested in clean energies,” President Petro said during a meeting with his cabinet, live streamed on social media. 

He added: “We are against fracking, because fracking is the death of nature, and the death of humanity.”

Ecopetrol, controlled by the Colombian government, had announced on Monday that it would invest over $880 million (around £709m) to renew its operations with Occidental in the Permian basin, an oil-producing region that spans Texas and New Mexico, to develop 91 oil wells.

Ecopetrol said its projects in the Permian basin produced an average of 95,200 barrels of oil per day in the first nine months of last year.