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National consolidation of
hydrocarbons
Latin America PAZ, May 11 (PL).—Bolivia’s
nationalization of hydrocarbons would appear to be
consolidated today, while still pending arduous
negotiations, after Brazil’s evident compliance with
the measure.
Brazil’s position dispatched predictions of conflict
with La Paz and was recorded in a joint communiqué
issued last night, at the end of five hours of
closed-door negotiations in a hotel in the Bolivian
capital.
The talks were headed by Andrés Soliz, Bolivian
hydrocarbons minister, and Silas Rondeau, Brazilian
minister of mines and energy, who signed the
statement together with Jorge Alvarado, president of
the Bolivian YPFB, and José Gabrielli, president of
Petrobras.
The Brazilian side reiterated its total respect for
the sovereign decisions of the Bolivian government
and peoples expressed in the May 1 nationalization
decree and stated its disposition to apply it in
accordance with the legal regulations established.
One of the most important points of the communiqué
confirms the agreement to start talks on reviewing
the price of natural gas supplied to Brazil by
Bolivia, with rationality and equality as the
operating criteria.
Another understanding is to begin meeting at
technical level to negotiate the conditions of
Petrobras’ operations and other aspects during the
transition phase to the new reality resulting from
nationalization.
At that level, compensation for Petrobras is also to
be negotiated in line with the disposition of the
decree that transfers part of its shares in a
refinery, thus making it a minority partner of the
state, which will have ownership control.
The final communiqué affirms that the meeting took
place in the spirit of the Puerto Iguazú Summit
Declaration that last week recognized Bolivia’s
sovereign and legitimate right to recover its
hydrocarbons and pronounced in favor of negotiations
on the new price of gas.
Soliz said that parallel negotiations are to take
place with Argentina on the new gas tariffs and
affirmed that Buenos Aires is acting with great
receptivity in the talks.
Last Friday talks were initiated with Spain and the
Repsol company of that country, in similar terms to
those with Brazil and under the common denominator
of respect for the nationalization.
On the other hand, the Gastón Cornejo, head of the
Senate bench of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS),
announced that the so-called nationalization of land
would be applied to illegal plots or those that do
not fulfill any economic or social function.
He recalled that those are the conditions
established by the constitution and that land that
is not adjusted to them will revert to the state and
be distributed among poor campesinos and indigenous
communities.
He noted that the recovery of land is the second
major measure of the government of President Evo
Morales after the nationalization of hydrocarbons.
In the face of the demands of regional and business
organizations against the newly announced land
policy, Senator Cornejo recalled that the measure is
part of the MAS electoral program, for which 53.7%
of the population voted.
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