Spanish:
 
|
Chavez, Lula and Kirchner plan pipeline at Summit
Bloomberg
SAO PAULO
Petroleumworld.com 04 27 06
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Argentine and Brazilian counterparts agreed to produce a plan by August for a gas pipeline the length of South America.Chavez, Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentine leader Nestor Kirchner are very ``excited'' about the project, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told reporters in Sao Paulo at their summit meeting today. The three presidents also agreed to invite Bolivia to participate in the construction, Argentine Planning Minister Julio De Vido said on the web site of the Argentine presidential palace.
The pipeline would stretch 10,000 kilometers (6,215 miles), more than three times the length of the U.S.-Mexico border, starting at Venezuela's Caribbean coast, and would run through Brazil before reaching Argentina. The plan is predicated on using Venezuela's natural gas reserves, the world's eighth-largest, to help resolve shortages in Argentina that have forced the government to stop gas exports to Chile and Uruguay.
``President Chavez has repeatedly highlighted the enormous importance and potential of South America's natural gas reserves,'' Venezuela's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Venezuela has 150 trillion cubic feet of reserves.
The pipeline faces a range of obstacles including traversing the Amazon and high cost, which Venezuela's Energy and Oil Ministry has estimated at $17 billion to $20 billion. It would take seven years to build.
Amorim said the plan would require approval by the continent's leaders and that a meeting would be held in September to discuss it.
The three presidents also discussed Venezuela's integration into the Mercosur trade pact, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry statement said. Chavez said last week he was pulling Venezuela out of the Andean Community of Nations free trade bloc, calling that agreement ``dead.''
Chavez also wants to link the pipeline to Bolivia to take advantage of the country's reserves, the second biggest in South America.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Andrew J. Barden in Sao Paulo at at barden@bloomberg.net
Bloomberg 04 26 06
Copyright ©2006 Bloomberg. All Rights Reserved.
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.
Write to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any
question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best
Viewed with IE
5.01+
Windows
NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels