Unnatural disaster

BOLIVIAN PRESIDENT EVO MORALES put his head in an oven this week and turned on the natural gas. There are only two likely outcomes: an explosion that ends his political career

The problem with Bolivia is that it isn’t Venezuela. The latter country has gotten away with energy nationalization because it wields a lot of power. As the world’s fifth-biggest oil exporter, Venezuela is such a big supplier that companies have little choice but to accede to its demands. Bolivia has no such leverage. Its big resource is natural gas, which is harder to transport than oil, so typically it stays in local markets. Most of its gas exports go to Brazil, which recently discovered large domestic reserves.

Foreign companies have long been wary about investing in Bolivia, especially after the 2003 collapse of a project that should have assured a healthy future for the country. Spanish and British oil companies had proposed a $5-billion pipeline to carry natural gas from landlocked Bolivia to the coast of Chile, where it would be liquefied and shipped to Mexico and California. But the plan provoked furious protests in a Bolivian population still angry at Chile for seizing what used to be Bolivia’s coastline in the 19th century. Morales helped lead the protest movement.

LA Times