Bolivia to Increase Control Over Repsol, Petrobras, Set Prices

[Judi Lynn]

Bolivia to Increase Control Over Repsol, Petrobras, Set Prices

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Repsol YPF SA and Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the largest oil and gas producers in Bolivia, will lose their ability to set prices in the Andean country as President Evo Morales increases control over the energy industry, the government's top economic policy maker said.

``Oil companies that are in Bolivia will no longer have the freedom to set prices and export volumes,'' Carlos Villegas, Bolivia's planning and development minister, said in an interview in Washington yesterday. ``Now, it's the Bolivian government that's going to set them.''

The new regulations, to be published in an executive order in coming weeks, are the centerpiece of a plan by the Morales administration to redistribute wealth in South America's poorest nation, Villegas said. The government will also implement a law approved by congress a year ago that boosts taxes on oil and gas output to 50 percent from 18 percent, he said.
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``With the same company being the buyer and seller, volumes and prices are significantly altered at the expense of the Bolivian government and to the benefit of the company,'' Villegas said at the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund. ``This is going to change.''
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http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=asqAWhJemN6Q&refer=news_index

[Judi Lynn]

1. Former Maid Bolivia's New Justice Minister

April 21, 2006, 2:03PM
Former Maid Bolivia's New Justice Minister

By FIONA SMITH Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

LA PAZ, Bolivia — At age 13, Casimira Rodriguez left her hardscrabble rural home, hoping to escape poverty by taking a job as a housemaid in the city. What she got instead was a nightmare of virtual slavery, and a first-hand view of the injustice many poor Bolivians experience.

Barely an adolescent herself, Rodriguez cooked, cleaned and looked after the children for an extended family of 14 people. She was not paid and was allowed out only to buy groceries down the street, she says.
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She is Bolivia's new justice minister, intent on overhauling one of Latin America's most overburdened, corrupt and inefficient judicial systems.
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Bolivian police regularly demand bribes from crime victims before pursuing their cases. The country's criminal courts refuse to hear 96 percent of the cases that come before them, and those that do go forward often end up delayed to the point that the courts lose their credibility, the Washington-based nonprofit Partners of the Americas said in a 2005 study.
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3810351.html

[Vidar]

2. Viva Morales!

[Robbien]

3. This is the same as the first step Venezuela took

They started with increasing taxes, oil companies said no.
Then they enforced tax collection, oil companies wouldn't pay.
Then they cancelled contracts replacing them with new ones giving more revenue to the state, oil companies threatened to leave.

Hope it works as well for Bolivia as it did for Venezuela

[Ghost Dog]

4. Sounds reasonable to me,

although still several steps below complete nationalisation.

A sensible deal can be struck between both parties.

I'm still hanging on to Repsol-YPF shares.

[SoCalDem]

5. Bolivian Gas=Enron=Bush

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