There is no gas. Some businessmen accuse the government of rationing fuel; the people of Oruro pay inflated prices and in several neighborhoods of La Paz, women are unable to cook. A week ago, while discussing the possible export of Bolivian gas to Chile, Mexico and the U.S., this journalist mentioned the necessity of satisfying Bolivia’s internal demand above all else—if for no other reason than that a national shortage coupled with increased exportation is such an explosive issue that it has already cost a Bolivian government its power.
But you don’t have to be a genius to have seen this coming: fuel is at its highest demand during the winter. Given this, more pipelines within Bolivia are necessary, especially since gas consumption has increased in recent years. (In El Alto, for example, there has been a steady rise in the number of home gas connections since 2004). The problem begins there: for example, in the midst of an unusually cold and windy winter, the city of Santa Cruz found itself without sufficient gas cisterns for its residents yesterday. The Evo Morales government also acknowledged yesterday that this problem could last for another 18 months.
Despite having denied the shortage last week, state-energy company YPFB President Guillermo Aruquipa admitted this past Monday that yes, there is a problem. But he focused on the lack of transport and he announced that the government would be making some purchases to solve the problem.
Curiously, that same day Evo said that those actually responsible for the shortages are the transnational companies who have operated in Bolivia since 1996, but who have not invested enough money. During an event in El Alto, the Bolivian President promised to speak “only the truth.” He said that there was not enough gas to be able to make more domestic gas connections in the indigenous city…a statement which left this correspondent confused: There isn’t enough gas or there aren’t enough ways to transport it? There is enough gas but there aren’t pipelines to be able to pump it to all parts of the country and put it into cisterns? And it’s the transnationals’ fault? Transnationals like Shell?
We say Shell, but we could actually say Enron—not because they are the same thing but because together they operated Bolivia’s gas and oil pipelines for many years. Enron then left and Ashmore Energy International arrived. As of May 29, 2007, this British transnational is the majority shareholder in Transredes—the company that holds a monopoly on Bolivia’s hydrocarbon transportation.
All of this falls in line with the President’s comments regarding who’s to blame for the gas shortage, except it’s not that simple. That is to say, Shell could be considered one of those responsible for why gas for cooking and heating homes doesn’t reach everyone; the same Shell that sold its part of the hydrocarbon pie because the Bolivian government wants control of gas and oil transport. Shell—the company that is on the verge of becoming a partner in YPFB in order to carry out gas and oil exploration and production in Bolivia. Or at least that’s what company executives said on the phone to Evo Morales, according to negotiations started last year. In other words, Shell isn’t leaving Bolivia as was announced in the La Paz daily newspaper La Razon. It’s only changing the operations it carries out.
It remains to be seen whether this switch will require that Shell and its former Transredes partners pay for the Desaguadero River oil spill seven years ago. The companies were forced to pay nothing more than pocket change in response to an environmental disaster that affected thousands of acres and thousands of lives. In some cases, they didn’t even do that much.
But it’s the government that’s negotiating now. Evo Morales’ May 1, 2006 nationalization decree set the deadline for the Bolivian state to be in control of hydrocarbon transport as this coming Monday June 11th. Meanwhile, gas continues being sold through pipelines and conflicts are not discussed.
On June 5th, the local media reported that part of the shortage problem is the lack of planning by YPFB. (Did we forget to mention that the President of YPFB doesn’t have hydrocarbon technical expertise?) It’s possible, but what’s clear is that the new state bureaucracy is responding to the problem much more quickly than say ex-President Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé did. Rodríguez refused to acknowledge the shortage that took hold in the final months of 2005 the until blockades in El Alto and La Paz grew too big to be ignored.
Moreover, Evo’s government approved a decree to punish the selling of contraband gas to neighboring countries—one of the various reasons why Bolivians lack their own supply. And adding to the multitude of solutions offered by the government, Hydrocarbon Minister Carlos Villegas announced on Tuesday May 30th that it would be possible to buy gas from Venezuela — an “energy accord” to get through the winter.
But the rightwing jumped on that idea and so government officials—uncomfortable with the onslaught of criticism—went around affirming that it wasn’t really necessary to go to such an extreme as to bring gas all the way from the Carribean. But on the night of June 5th, Vice President Alvaro García Linera announced that yes, if necessary the government would spend $10 million on the importation of liquid gas from Venezuela to placate the fuel deficit while trying to find a solution to the long term supply-demand imbalance. And so, yes, the Bolivian people will suffer neither price increases nor gas supply problems during the winter.
But the commercial media like La Razón, continue to create chaos, claiming that the gas purchase is a done deal, failing to mention important government announcements and making clever contrasts to shine negative light on the government.
Meanwhile, nationalization deadlines near, the long-term gas shortage goes without real solution and the government doesn’t clarify its actions. We wait to see what develops, aside from the flu and more talk.
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