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Bolivia state oilman quits
AFP
LA PAZ
Petroleumworld.com 01 29 06The head of Bolivia's oil and gas monopoly quit Friday, hours after deeming ready 44 contracts with 10 foreign producers, a major goal for socialist President Evo Morales.
The president of YPFB, Juan Carlos Ortiz, blamed others for his decision.
"I have a vision of the company that I was not able to make understood," he said.
Ortiz had earlier announced that the 44 new oil contracts YPFB negotiated with 10 foreign oil and gas producers and signed in October would go into force Thursday.
In May, Morales declared all foreign oil contracts unconstitutional, unnecessarily favorable to the foreign companies and ordered they be renegotiated, a process he called "nationalization."
The symbolic value of the new contracts was key for Morales, a former legislator representing the interests of Bolivia's poor and one of the leaders behind mass demonstrations that toppled two presidents, largely over oil, gas and the distribution of wealth from those sources.
Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in the Americas and has the second-largest gas reserves in South America, after Venezuela.
Ortiz said he would "not allow my name to be bandied about by persons who hide their identities to launch an attack against my administration or myself. I am not used to that and I am not going to tolerate it."
Bolivia's main joint-venture partners are Petrobras of Brazil, Repsol of Spain, Total of France, British Gas of Britain, Pluspetrol of Argentina and Vintage of the United States.
The companies are to invest some 3.5 billion dollars in coming years.
Brazil and Argentina are the two large purchasers of Bolivian gas.
AFP 27 0056 GMT 01 07
Copyright© 1999 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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