Cobol connection dropping

We are looking at upgrading from MicroFocus cobol v5 to MicroFocus visual COBOL v6 in our environment for some custom COBOL programs that were written years ago. Here is the command to compile:

cob -x -P -v $filename -C"p(cobsql) csqlt==ora end-c PICX==VARCHAR2 endp " $ORACLE_HOME/precomp/lib/cobsqlintf.o -L$ORACLE_HOME/lib/ -l clntsh -N nolitlink

I noticed that this version now requires an entry in $HOME/.odbc.ini which is in place.

I can connect to the database using

EXEC SQL

CONNECT :LS-ORA-ID IDENTIFIED BY :LS-ORA-PSWD
END-EXEC.

and I can see the connection in the gv$session view so I know it's connected. However, the first time I try to use the connection with a simple select statement, I get an ORA-01012: not logged on error.