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Bolivia Military Told to Occupy Gas Fields
LA PAZ, Bolivia May 1, 2006 (AP)— President Evo Morales ordered soldiers to occupy Bolivia's natural gas fields Monday and threatened to evict foreign companies unless they give Bolivia control over the entire chain of production.
Morales sent soldiers and engineers with Bolivia's state-owned oil company to installations and fields tapped by foreign companies including Britain's BG Group PLC and BP PLC, Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF SA, France's Total SA and U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp. The companies have six months to agree to new contracts or leave Bolivia, he said.
More
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1911447
Britain's BG Group and BP, as well as the US-based Exxon Mobil, are among those firms operating in Bolivia.
"The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources," Mr Morales said in a speech from the San Alberto petroleum field in southern Bolivia.
Bolivia has South America's second largest natural gas reserves after Venezuela. Within the next six months, all foreign companies must turn over most production control to Bolivia's cash-strapped, state-owned oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPBF), Mr Morales said.
Mr Morales, a strident leftist, had pledged to exert greater state control over the industry since he won the presidency in December in a landslide, becoming Bolivia's first indigenous president.
Multinational companies that produced 100 million cubic feet of natural gas daily last year in Bolivia will be able to retain only 18 per cent of their production, with the rest being given to YPFB, he said.
Neil Burrows, a spokesman for BP Group, told The Scotsman last night: "The government has made a decree and told us we have 180 days to respond to its proposals. But the proposal has not been forthcoming so until we look at it in detail, we cannot comment."
He added: "We have less than 100 British workers in the country. The safety and security situation seems to be stable."
A spokeswoman for BP declined to comment on the announcement, but said the company had no British employees in the country.
In the past, YPFB produced Bolivia's natural gas, but it was reduced to an administrative role in the mid-1990s after the country's gas exploration and production business was privatised. Experts have warned that the company is incapable of becoming a producer again without a massive infusion of cash.
Mr Morales has been called "America's worst nightmare" by the US State Department because of his promises to expel foreign firms and his support for farmers of the coca plant, the raw material for cocaine.
More
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=654402006
More
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1911447
Britain's BG Group and BP, as well as the US-based Exxon Mobil, are among those firms operating in Bolivia.
"The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources," Mr Morales said in a speech from the San Alberto petroleum field in southern Bolivia.
Bolivia has South America's second largest natural gas reserves after Venezuela. Within the next six months, all foreign companies must turn over most production control to Bolivia's cash-strapped, state-owned oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPBF), Mr Morales said.
Mr Morales, a strident leftist, had pledged to exert greater state control over the industry since he won the presidency in December in a landslide, becoming Bolivia's first indigenous president.
Multinational companies that produced 100 million cubic feet of natural gas daily last year in Bolivia will be able to retain only 18 per cent of their production, with the rest being given to YPFB, he said.
Neil Burrows, a spokesman for BP Group, told The Scotsman last night: "The government has made a decree and told us we have 180 days to respond to its proposals. But the proposal has not been forthcoming so until we look at it in detail, we cannot comment."
He added: "We have less than 100 British workers in the country. The safety and security situation seems to be stable."
A spokeswoman for BP declined to comment on the announcement, but said the company had no British employees in the country.
In the past, YPFB produced Bolivia's natural gas, but it was reduced to an administrative role in the mid-1990s after the country's gas exploration and production business was privatised. Experts have warned that the company is incapable of becoming a producer again without a massive infusion of cash.
Mr Morales has been called "America's worst nightmare" by the US State Department because of his promises to expel foreign firms and his support for farmers of the coca plant, the raw material for cocaine.
More
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=654402006
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Impoverished Bolivia has the second largest natural gas reserves in South America after Venezuela, and the question of how the country should manage these riches has been at the heart of several popular revolts since 2003.
Morales became president in January on vows to exert more state control over the country's natural resources, reflecting a growing backlash against free markets and foreign investment in Latin America.
Radical leftists recently complained that he had made little progress on this front.
The president chose Labour Day, May 1, to announce the sector's nationalisation, which stipulates companies will have to leave the country unless they sign contracts recognising the new state control of the fields.
"We are not a government of mere promises, we follow through on what we propose and what the people demand," Morales said after signing a nationalisation decree at the San Alberto field, operated by Brazil's state-owned Petrobras in the southeastern province of Tarija.
"We want to ask (the Armed Forces) that starting now, they occupy all the energy fields in Bolivia along with battalions of engineers," Morales said.
...
More
http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Bolivias-military-seizes-gas-fields/2006/05/02/1146335699024.html
In a May Day speech, he said foreign energy firms must agree to channel all their sales through the Bolivian state, or else leave the country.
He set the firms a six-month deadline, but the military and state energy officials have already started taking control of the oil fields.
Bolivia has South America's second largest natural gas reserves.
But the country has suffered years of political crises over how to develop and profit from the industry.
The main foreign oil firms operating in Bolivia are Brazil's Petrobras, the Spanish-Argentine company Repsol YPF, British companies British Gas and British Petroleum and France's Total.
High energy prices
Speaking at an oilfield in the south of the country, Bolivia's left-wing president called it an "historic day".
"The pillage of our natural resources by foreign companies is over," he declared.
More
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4963348.stm
Under the May Day decree, private energy companies will have to sell a controlling stake to the Bolivian government and renegotiate contracts.
At the largest gas fields, royalty payments will increase from 50% to 82%.
The fate of Bolivia's gas reserves was at the heart of protests which saw two presidents thrown out of office.
Mr Morales' move is the fulfilment of an election promise to secure better benefits for impoverished ordinary Bolivians from the gas reserves - the second largest in the continent.
Hundreds of Bolivians celebrated the decree in the de facto capital, La Paz, on Monday.
But the private gas companies, which have invested about $3.5bn in gas exploration and development since 1997, say it is a worrying development.
'Unfriendly'
A spokesman for Petrobras, one of the largest foreign investors in Bolivia, called it an "unfriendly" action.
More
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4964300.stm