Word: bolivia
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...reserves, South America's second largest, under state control would seem to be a triumph for Chavez and his quest to integrate Latin America under his leftist "Bolivarian Revolution" (named for South America's independence hero, Simon Bolivar). But while Venezuela has the hemisphere's largest oil reserves, Bolivia is still a bit player on the world energy stage. And while Morales' nationalization decree was certainly a strong rebuke to the U.S.-backed capitalist reforms that have swept the region over the past 15 years, it was also a major irritant for Brazil and Argentina...
...continent's two economic powers are not only Bolivia's sole natural gas markets but among its biggest energy investors as well. "Foreign energy companies got very sweet deals when Bolivias energy sector was privatized in the 1990s, and many Bolivians feel they were screwed," says David Mares, a political science professor at the University of California-San Diego and an expert on Latin American energy issues. "But in the end, Morales needs a lot of capital to make this work - which means he needs Brazil and Argentina more than they need him. He's going to have to make...
...Those are deals that Morales apparently feels Chavez, his political mentor, can broker for him. Chavez was characteristically boisterous Wednesday night when he flew into La Paz, Bolivia, to meet with Morales before the pair left for Puerto Iguazu. "Bolivia and Venezuela," he announced, "are always working on a big common strategy...
...behind closed doors, say analysts, Chavez has to help devise a way for Bolivia to realize the steeply increased share of gas and oil revenues it wants, while making sure foreign companies like Brazil's Petrobras and Spain's Repsol don't face expropriation of the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investments and infrastructure they have staked in the Andean nation. That balance will probably require Venezuela to help subsidize the nationalization by pouring some of its own prodigious petro-wealth into Bolivia's threadbare state energy company, YPFP...
...experts warn that the fact that Morales sent armed troops into the country's gas and oil fields this week - and that he brought in auditors from Venezuela's state-run oil monopoly, Petroleos de Venezuela, to seize and examine the books of the foreign energy firms operating in Bolivia - may not have been the most tactful thing to do before sitting down with Brazil and Argentina...