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!"
Right! Cultivating a mindless zombie population will be a tremendous asset to expanding the economy!
Iran and now this and people wonder why the price of oil is going up?
What makes these commie clowns unable to see what is in front of their faces? It's really astonishing.
Quick! Call Bill O'Reilly so he can rant and organize a boycott against those wascally oil companies.
Sadly, many of those who share O'Reilly's opinion are right here on FR.
Communism is a contagious cancer that represents a much larger threat than Bird Flu. Its high time to start showing some military muscle down on the border.
2 types of illegals: some lefties trying to spread commie views...some righties trying to flee their left-leaning countries.
Cruise Missle Alert !!!
It's so fun to watch a windbag like O'Reilly make an idiot of himself in public by insisting that market forces don't exist and that oil companies are gouging us.
Gee I wonder why they would nationalize. Oil corporations are making billions in profits and non-nationalized oil producing nations are paying billions. Supply and demand, cause and effect, it's all the same.
If you haven't been to Bolivia, it would be worth while to go there and see the conditions in which people must exist.
The entire country is controlled by an elite that holds the wealth of the nation. Expect soon an assasination attempt on this new President. He is upsetting the apple cart.
And in a commie country the government becomes the new elite which holds all the wealth which is a much worse case scenario.
The same can be said for most of Latin and South America. The majority of the people living subsistence level lives, in abject poverty, with a small elite actually running the country.
Don't forget that the companies made billion dollar investments into those facilities, expecting to recoup that investment over time. A US-based company was interested in building a LNG plant in Peru but is worried about the outcome of the Peruvian elections, of which Chavez keeps sticking his nose in.
Unfortunately, the companies will probably capitulate and run the plants while giving huge chunks of money to the leftist governemnts. If the companies had some backbone, they should shut it down, refuse to sell spare parts, etc, and good luck to the Bolivian "engineers" to run the company. Many of the national oil company "engineers" (PDVSA, Sonatrach, etc) are only in the positions because of nepostism. They are useless.
People should also keep China in mind. Companies constantly move operations to China for cheap labor. China sits quietly building its economy and its industry. We keep giving ours away. China knows that it is now still weaker, but it is waiting patiently. At some time in the future, China will nationalize all of its foriegn-owned industry, leaving America with serious problems.
Oh.. Duh. I get it. Duh. All right, I'm awake now.
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