Natural gas in Bolivia

"Bolivia's economic history reveals a pattern of a single-commodity focus",[2] diversification has only occasionally being the case, due to political and geographical problems.

At the time these new discoveries aided the country on a modest economic recovery after previous years of serious economic problems (with hyperinflation, recession, and austere stabilization), their most severe since the 1950s, later aggravated by a collapse on the world's tin market in 1985 – tin being Bolivia's most valuable natural commodity at the time.

Estenssoro abandoned his left-wing allies and his own populist past and "decreed one of the most austere economic stabilization packages ever implemented in Latin America"[2] called the New Economic Policy (Nueva Política Económica—NPE), the decree "aimed at ending Bolivia’s record-setting hyperinflation and dismantling many of the large and inefficient state enterprises that had been created by the revolution".

When Lozada came back to power in 2002, the country by then was going through economic difficulties and the anti-coca campaign led to even further discontent, specially by people of indigenous descent.

It was under Lozada's vice president's rule that in July 2004 a referendum was called, to calm down the violent protests and to decide the future of Bolivia's natural gas reserves.

Discontent with the result of the implementation of these reforms throughout the past decades (that ultimately led to the “Bolivian gas war”) definitely contributed to the election of Evo Morales in 2005, since he defended a return to the model of strong state intervention in the economy[3] and was an opponent of the coca-eradication program.

After signing a decree to nationalize the natural gas industry, President Evo Morales dramatically took over and occupied installations by using military force on May 1, 2005.

Even though he stated that expropriations would not occur, the short period of six months given to renegotiate contracts put great pressure on the main foreign companies exploring for natural gas in Bolivia.

"[9] In December 2009, Evo Morales was re-elected for another 5 year-term, winning with 63 percent of the ballots according to unofficial counts by two polling firms.

Higher prices for the natural gas and also minerals, which account for the bulk of Bolivia's exports, have helped sustain economic growth and also President Morales' approval.

[In November 2009], Bolivia received a pledge of a $1.5 billion investment from the Spanish-Argentine company Repsol for natural gas development.

country comparison to the world: 78 (millions of US dollars) The state-owned petrol company of Bolivia is YPFB Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos.

[12] BP, US EIA, and OPEC all place Bolivia's proven gas reserves as the sixth-largest in South America, behind those of Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, and Trinidad and Tobago.