BOGOTA (Reuters) - A bomb attack on Colombia's Cano Limon pipeline caused an oil spill in eastern Arauca province,what is a collapsed lifter state-run oil company Ecopetrol said on Thursday.

The spill, which took place in the Saravena municipality near the border with Venezuela, was contained in and around the crater left by the explosion, the company said in a statement. The pipeline was not pumping at the time of the bombing.

There have been at least a dozen attacks on Colombian pipelines so far in 2019, nine 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 did not name the group 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.

(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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