Peru
presidential candidate Ollanta Humala, would tighten control over
energy
PLATTS
LIMA
Petroleumworld.com
02 24 06
Peruvian presidential candidate Ollanta Humala, running second
in opinion
polls for Peru's April elections, said Thursday that, if elected,
his
government would seek partial ownership of the country's oil and
gas
resources and to renegotiate contracts which "violate"
national interests.
"For
us, the issue of hydrocarbons is strategic, first, because the
world
is more hungry for energy all the time and international prices
cannot be
calculated in the short term," Humala, a retired army officer
who is
candidate of Union por el Peru, told foreign journalists.
"The
state has to have sovereign, significant participation (in
these activities) that make it possible among other things to
protect prices,
[and] the reserves of the country's natural resources," he
added.
A recent
rise of 47% in the price of natural gas from Peru's Camisea gas
project has sparked a heated debate in the presidential campaign
about whether
the project, which came on line in August 2004, is bringing real
benefits to
the country.
Humala also
expressed opposition to a project that would convert Camisea
gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG) for export. "Rather
than export natural
gas, what has to be done is supply the domestic market and industrialize
the
gas by creating a petrochemical industry that can produce fertilizers,
plastics. In this way, we will create jobs and generate foreign
exchange for
the country's educational and health services," he said.
Humala said
decisions on whether the state would have majority or
minority participation in the so-called strategic activities would
be
negotiated on a case by case basis, depending on the activity
and taking into
account such factors such as international prices, the state's
financial
capacity and scope of the project.
Humala also
said he would promote the participation of local businessmen
in these activities and would give them priority over foreign
companies. He
described the privatization process carried out mostly in the
1990s during
former President Alberto Fujimori's government as a process that
essentially
transferred state companies to foreign hands.
On minerals,
Humala said his government would renegotiate any contract in
which the company is not paying royalties or income tax or is
violating
environmental regulations.
--Mary Powers,
newsdesk@platts.com
For more
information, take a trial to Platts Global Alert at
http://globalalert.platts.com.
PLATTS
02 23 06
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