Posted on 05/02/2006 7:36:20 AM PDT by Grendel9
EVO Morales, the Bolivian president, last night ordered his soldiers to occupy the country's natural gas fields immediately and threatened to evict foreign companies unless they sign new contracts within six months giving the state majority control over petroleum production.
Mr Morales said soldiers and engineers with Bolivia's state-owned oil company would be sent to installations operated by foreign petroleum companies.
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.
He has repeatedly said the country's natural resources have been "looted" by foreign companies and must be nationalised so that Bolivians can benefit from the profits that are being sent overseas.
But he has also said that nationalisation will not mean a complete state takeover, because Bolivia lacks the ability to tap all its natural gas on its own.
Bolivia exports most of its natural gas to Argentina and Brazil, with whom the government is negotiating higher prices.
Last week, Mr Morales told Brazil's Valor Economico newspaper that Bolivia would have to "set up a new battalion, a new army of oil and gas specialists to exert the property right" for a complete state takeover of petroleum production.
Mr Morales also said the state would retake majority control of Bolivian hydrocarbons companies that were partially privatised in the 1990s.
Mr Morales symbolically chose yesterday, 1 May - International Workers' Day - to announce the nationalisation plan. Afterwards, a soldier unfurled a Bolivian flag from atop the natural gas installation.
Presidency marked by bizarre decisions EVO Morales, the leftist Bolivian president, is renowned for a string of bizarre moves. Soon after taking power in January, Mr Morales, 46, cut his salary by more than half to a little over £1,000 per month. That meant a salary review for all public-sector staff, as no official can earn more than the president.
He then appointed a Marxist journalist to drive his energy policy and a street protest leader to lead the water ministry.
Mr Morales, a former llama herder and coca leaf farmer and Bolivia's first indigenous president, also promised to end American-financed schemes to eradicate the coca crop.
He endorsed comments by his foreign minister that coca leaves, from which cocaine is produced, have more calcium than milk and should be included on school breakfast menus.
In his first diplomatic spat with the United States, Mr Morales said he wanted the Bush administration to explain why it cancelled a visa for Senator Leonilda Zurita, who was planning a speaking tour.
Ms Zurita has led rallies with chants of "Long live coca!" and "Death to the Yankees!"
"Cruise Missle Alert !!!"
you mean Lockheed proving grounds practice area alert.....
I say screw these Latin American countries. End U.S. foreign aid to them, recall all of our ambassadors and trade reps. Advise Americans not to travel there. Let them stew in their own feces.
Why do all of these South American countries blithely ignore the ruin that falls upon each and every country that turns itself over to leftists?
There is no going back after you confiscate assets. Bolivia just cut its own throat. Venezuela, and now Bolivia, are on the track to become New Zimbabwe - and Bolivia didn't have that far to go.
They've admitted they can't tap oil on their own, though. It's just thievery to rent the place to someone else, let them set up shop, then move in and steal it.
And somehow it's all America's fault!!
Communism and socialism are the reason the South American economy is in shambles.
Isn't that where one person or a group of people own all the oil producing capabitlities because they were allowed to buy up all the competition, and then they say, 'we got it, if you want it, you'll eventually have to sell your soul'???
I can't wait til you guys figure out how to privatize the city water supplies...
I'm not saying it's right, but I am seeing a trend forming with producers on one side and consumers on the other. We can't invade them all, our only way out is alternative energy.
The neoliberal adjustments imposed by the IMF haven't made the lives of middle and lower class South Americans better, in fact, in many cases they have suffered greatly. I guess they feel they have nothing to loose and maybe something to gain.
Imagine yourself as an entrepreneur, trying to build wealth in a country where a mob or a politician or a band of rogue cops or wannabe guerrillas can take it from you. Imagine the relationships you would have to build to protect it, and the personal security steps you would have to take, and you will understand much better why these countries are the way they are.
Now imagine that your investment is seized. Imagine, now, what you will have to do to get it back.
If you've been salting some of it away in south Florida, you may just decide its not worth it, and just go there. Imagine that generations of entrepreneurs have had to protect themselves by making investments outside the country, just in case, and again you will understand why these places are the way they are.
Morales has the upper hand, and he is cashing in. Tomorrow someone will pop him, and take over. The day after, someone else will push him aside, and take over. Not many people can survive and build any kind of wealth in such a place, and in fact there isn't much industrial wealth there. Who would risk it? BP risked it, and they are paying a price now. If BP isn't prepared to play the game the way its played there, they will not get it back, and they would be better off to focus their investments in countries that have laws.
Morales and his gang will suck the life out of wealth that others built, and build nothing themselves. And then they will disappear into history, just like all the others.
One person owning all oil producing capabilities? Who?
What's funny is that there is stuff in this article that one would not see in a US MSM produced article.
Absolutely! China is making heavy investments in SA.
Boy, now they'll be rich! Their problems are over!
How does that progressive marxist slogan go?
"El pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido!"
Any dumb b*stard who believes this commie swill deserves what they get.
'Atlas Shrugged', Spanish translation.
I hope BP pulls out. If they stay for the pittance they'll get, they'll send a message to every other third world cesspool they deal with: "Let us set up drilling in your country. Then you can steal it and we'll become your obedient servants."
There are two countries that are gradually coming into the new century, Brazil and Chile. They have a long way to go but Chile is almost there and Brazil is improving each year.
Oil companies are experienced in the art of dealing with third world thieves and potentates, so there is an even chance they will come to an accommodation they can live with.
But make no mistake. The situation of an "elite" that controls the wealth of the country will not be less true with Morales in charge, it will be more true. Bolivia's first hope to break out of its poverty was when they convinced the oil companies to develop their gas fields, and they built the 2000 kilometer pipeline to Brazil.
That put Bolivia on the map for the first time in several centuries as a place you could prosper.
But it also tied Bolivia to Brazil's business cycle. The second hope for Bolivia was a second pipeline to the sea, to tie them to the world. That is when the mobs went crazy, because according to Morales, that meant "slavery". He told his people that coca was authentic to their culture, not hydrocarbons. He was egged on by Chavez and Euro NGOs, which is grotesque if you think about it, an OPEC leader warning the poorest country in the world away from going into oil and gas production.
He is neither the first nor the last gangster to rule that country. Sadly, he put an end to what was a moment of hope for Bolivia. He is not a departure from their history, he is more of the same.
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So should they blow the wellheads and the facilities when they leave?
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