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Bolivia wants to join OPEC - Morales
By Chris Wright
AFP
VIENNA
Petroleumworld.com 05 13 06
Bolivia would like to become a member of the powerful OPEC oil cartel, Bolivian President Evo Morales said Friday as he continued a charm offensive at an EU-Latin American summit.
"I would like my country to be part of OPEC," Morales said at the summit in Vienna, which he had shocked Thursday by saying that his government would not compensate foreign firms for assets they might lose after Bolivia nationalized its oil and gas resources.
Morales has since tried to strike a more reasonable note.
About joining the 11-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the world's most powerful oil cartel, Morales told reporters: "It is a desire. Who wouldn't like to be one of those countries?"
Bolivia is the second major producer of natural gas in Latin America but is much less influential as an oil producer, producing around a modest 40,000 barrels per day (bpd).
OPEC-member Venezuela is Latin America's main oil producer, with an output of over two million bpd.
Morales said Bolivia was "recovering" the country's natural resources following his May 1 decree nationalising Bolivia's energy industry, a move that has worried foreign energy producers in the country.
"How can we enter OPEC if we do not control our natural resources?" Morales asked rhetorically.
Left-winger Morales, elected in December as his country's first indigenous leader, added that "OPEC countries have great interest in talking bilaterally" to his government.
Spain, whose Repsol-YPF energy giant has invested more than a billion euros (1.2 million dollars) in Bolivia since 1997, is one of the countries most affected by Morales' decision to nationalise.
The company, the world's seventh-biggest energy producer, accounted for 25.7 percent of Bolivian gas production through its subsidiary Andina prior to nationalisation.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, also attending the summit of EU states and their Latin and Caribbean counterparts, said just ahead of Morales' announcement of his OPEC dream that the pair had enjoyed a positive Vienna meeting.
"It was a positive and sincere meeting and one which brought clarification" of Morales' energy policy, Zapatero said.
"It's clear that the future interests of Spanish firms linked to the hydrocarbons sector must be handled through bilateral relations," Zapatero said.
Last week, Repsol YPF said it intended to stay in Bolivia and would cooperate with the Morales government "while not renouncing the defence of its rights" and in a manner which it hoped would "limit the fallout."
Morales has given foreign energy companies 180 days to agree to new contracts with Bolivia's state oil firm YPFB, which will thereafter become the majority shareholder in energy companies operating in Bolivia.
Bolivia's Latin American neighbours share Spanish concerns and Brazil, which relies heavily on La Paz for its energy needs, described the nationalisation move as an unfriendly act while Brazilian energy group Petrobas said it was to scrap plans to lay a new pipeline to its neighbour.
Morales says he wants foreign firms to stay in his country but that they "must not be the masters of our natural resources."
The indigenous leader is a close ally of fellow left-winger and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has backed his policy.
AFP 12 1928 GMT 05 06
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