June 29, 2006
Gas pipeline meeting in Venezuela invites Bolivia to join mega project

(Venezuelanalysis.com) - "Bolivia officially joined the Great Southern Gas Pipeline project during meetings which took place in Caracas between the four participating countries: Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia.

'This pipeline is going to be the backbone of the all of the Southamerican community and the dream is now of four countries, because Bolivia is joining, that are going to generate strong support for the project,' announced Argentine Planning Minister Julio De Vido in a comunique distributed by Argentina. According to De Vido, there are also plans to invite Uruguay, Paraguay and others to join the project.

In Preparation for Ministerial Committee meeting, working groups met to discuss the various issues, ideas and proposals including the 'market, resources, comercialization, tarif design, engeneering planning, environmental regulatory aspects, management of strategic communications, among other themes,' during the Fourth meeting of the Multilateral Work Committee.

The Ministerial Committee approved the working plan and also approved $150,000 to Bolivia to carry out an environmental study before the implimentation of the project.

According to an official comuniqué, the Ministerial Committee, which will meet next in September, also decided to designate a Permanent Commission, based in Venezuela, to be 'exclusively dedicated to presenting, in 60 days, the terms and conditions for the contracting of the engineering conceptual design of the Great Southern Gas Pipeline.' The comuniqué announced that 'each Ministry will pass on the relative information to the Commission regarding supply and demand of gas.'

The Gas Pipeline is a 8-10,000 km long, $20-25 billion project, which would run from Caracas to Buenos Aires, and would be the longest gas pipeline in the world. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez says that the pipeline could take eight years to construct and could provide a million jobs. Some analysts say that Brazil, which currently receives most of its gas from Bolivia, could save $11 billion annually in gas costs when the pipeline finally becomes operational.

De Vido expressed the importance of the pipeline 'for the development of the people.' 'We are entering in to a more committed operational phase,' he said, adding, 'This project isn´t about economics, but rather it has an important social sense' (...)

According to the Venezuelan Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, the Presidents from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Venezuela plan to meet in August to begin construction on the Great Southern Gas Pipeline".