Luis Garcia Sanchez announced the spending plans Monday after his first meeting with the new president of Bolivian state-owned oil company YPFB, Santos Ramirez.
At the end of a day spent in talks with industry executives, Ramirez said the investment figures proposed by the companies would be checked against the numbers gathered by his auditors.
"What we'll have to do is verify if there is a failure to follow through on the investments and see what the commitment is in the contract, and what the penalties are for failure to meet the terms," Ramirez said.
The YPFB chief plans to meet this week with the other nine companies that operate in Bolivia, including Brazilian state-owned giant Petrobras, Argentina's Pluspetrol, French oil major Total and U.S.-based Vintage, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum.
Petroleum investment in Bolivia has been practically paralyzed since 2000 due to political instability and oil industry reforms.
Last week, Ramirez became YPFB's fifth chief since socialist President Evo Morales took office just over two years ago.
Bolivia needs nearly $1 billion of energy industry investment annually over the next five years to boost natural-gas production enough to cover domestic demand plus export commitments to Argentina and Brazil.
Morales signed an executive order on May 1, 2006, nationalizing and giving the state "absolute control" over Bolivia's huge reserves of natural gas and lesser ones of oil.
The landlocked Andean nation has an estimated 48 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, giving it the second-largest reserves in South America after Venezuela. EFE
ja/hv
More News:
Market Updates |
Stock Alerts |
All Trading News |
Stock Index
|
|
