La Paz, Bolivia – President Evo Morales ordered the nationalization Monday of the nation’s natural-gas industry and threatened to evict foreign companies unless they give Bolivia control over production.
Morales sent soldiers and engineers from Bolivia’s state- owned oil company to installations and fields tapped by foreign companies – including Exxon Mobil, Britain’s BG Group PLC and BP PLC, Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF SA and France’s Total SA. The companies have six months to agree to new contracts or leave Bolivia, he said.
Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said troops were sent to 56 locations.
Soldiers took over major gas fields and refineries and, in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, where much of the industry is based, occupied some oil company offices, said Tuffi Are, news editor at the newspaper El Deber. He said about 100 soldiers were guarding the Petrobras refinery outside the city.
Morales, a leftist allied with Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in seeking to blunt U.S. influence in the region, had pledged to exert greater state control over the industry since winning election in December.
“The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources,” Morales said in a speech from the San Alberto field in southern Bolivia. “The looting by the foreign companies has ended.”
