Ex-Pres Paz Zamora Says Bolivia Will Export Natural Gas

[Say_What]

:wtf: Bolivian law allows foreign companies to take 82% of the revenues they earn extracting natural gas :wtf:

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SAO PAULO (AP)--Bolivia will eventually come up with a politically acceptable plan to boost exports of its mammoth natural gas reserves, former Bolivian President Jaime Paz Zamora said Tuesday.

A gas export plan was blamed for helping topple the government of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada two weeks ago, but Paz Zamora said it's inevitable that South America's poorest country will sell much more of its natural gas abroad.

Overseas demand from places like California and northern Mexico "is huge and will remain huge for many years," he said in an interview with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the 22nd Socialist International Congress. Bolivia's reserves are the second-largest in South America, after Venezuela.

But Paz Zamora, who was Bolivia's president from 1989 to 1993, said it will take at least five years to begin shipments and that foreign companies with contracts to extract Bolivian natural gas must agree to pay higher royalty fees.

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