Bolivian President Demands More Foreign Investment in Gas, Oil Production
Bolivian president demands more foreign investment in gas, oil production
LIMA, May 20 (Xinhua) — Bolivian President Evo Morales on Tuesday demanded foreign energy companies in Bolivia to increase their investment in gas and oil production, in order to boost supplies for both foreign and domestic demand.
“I want to warn those companies that sabotage the investments, I have ordered my ministers to prepare a decree with an ultimatum to those companies that don’t invest,” the local daily newspaper “La Razon” quoted Morales as saying.
If those companies do not invest, the government will take back the energy areas for state energy company YPFB, Morales said.
According to La Razon, Bolivia’s gas production has stagnated at about 40 million cubic meters per day. Among them, 30 million are exported to Brazil, about three to four million to Argentina, and the rest go to the domestic market.
Facing a severe shortage of oil and gas, the Bolivian government announced an investment of 1.856 billion U.S. dollars this year to exploit new reserves.
Morales said on May 1st that his government was obliged under a decree to “nationalize” most of the affiliate shares of three foreign oil companies that had refused to transfer them to YPFB.
Two years after Morales launched his move to nationalize the country’s rich energy industry in a bid to increase government income, Bolivia’s state energy company YPFB signed a 6.3 million- U.S. dollar deal with Spanish Repsol oil company to acquire enough shares to give it a majority stake in Repsol’s Andina, one of Bolivia’s biggest energy companies.
Morales on May 1st also decreed the state takeover of natural gas producer Empresa Petrolera Chaco, held by British oil giant BP; the Transredes pipeline company belonging to Cayman Islands-based Ashmore Energy International; and storage and fuel transport firm CLHB, controlled by German and Peruvian firms, at a total cost of 37.2 million dollars.
Morales has often said Bolivia wants partners to develop its energy industry, not to become owners of its resources.
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