Until nationalization, Petrobras was the main company in Bolivia
Bolivia's Minister of Hydrocarbons, Carlos Villegas, met today behind closed doors in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro with authorities from the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras, company spokespeople reported.
Villegas was accompanied by the president of the state-owned Bolivian Fiscal Petroleum Deposits (YPFB), Guillermo Aruquipa, and was received by the president of Petrobras, José Sergio Gabrielli, and of Petrobras Bolivia, José Fernando de Freitas, according to Petrobras.
The company declined to offer further comment on the meeting that ended at noon, but said another meeting of officials has been scheduled for early November.
According to the Bolivian consulate in Rio, Villegas left Brazil for Bolivia shortly after leaving Petrobras.
Villegas completed the second day of a visit to Brazil, in which, according to industry sources, he discussed with Brazilian authorities the possible resumption of exploration and production activities by Petrobras on Bolivian soil.
In Sao Paulo, the minister met on Monday with his Brazilian counterpart, Nelson Hubner.
"We talked about investments, but that will be better addressed with Petrobras," Hubner said, as quoted by the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
This week in the United States, Villegas tried to reassure international investors, stating that there is legal certainty for energy companies that want to operate in his country.
Villegas met in Miami and New York with businessmen, politicians and labor groups, before whom he defended the controversial plan to nationalize energy resources decreed on May 1, 2006 by President Evo Morales.
With the second largest natural gas reserves in South America, impoverished Bolivia depends on the hydrocarbon to finance its social and economic projects, but it does not have its own resources to finance the expansion of its fields.
Until nationalization, Petrobras was the main company in Bolivia and responsible for exporting some 30 million cubic meters of natural gas from the fields in southern Bolivia to Brazil and Argentina.
At the beginning of October, Petrobras' new Gas and Energy Director, Maria das Gracas Foster, indicated that the oil company plans to continue participating in natural gas exploitation projects in Bolivia, despite the frictions with the Morales government.
"We have no doubt that there will be absolute Bolivian interest in restoring the confidence of those who have an interest in the continuation of the exploratory movement in Bolivia," Foster said in his first press conference in office.
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