Bolivia faces a drop in gas production, for years its main source of incomebecause it stopped exploring and replenishing its reserves for a decade, President Luis Arce assured this Thursday.
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“This decline It is mainly due to the fact that there has not been a replacement of gas reserves”said the president at a press conference at the Government Palace.
Since 2014, gas production has fallen by 37 percent, from 59 million cubic meters per day (mmcd) to 37 mmcd this year, according to official data from the state oil company YPFB.
About 81 percent of the production is sold to Argentina and Brazil, which places Bolivia as one of the main exporters of the fuel in Latin America.
“All this time there was no exploration and from our government we began to show investment in exploration,” Arce defended himself in a veiled criticism of his mentor, former President Evo Morales, who governed between 2006 and 2019.
Both today are disputing the electoral leadership of the ruling party, facing the 2025 presidential elections.
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According to Alvaro Ríos, former Minister of Energy and director of the private institute Gas Energy Latin America, Bolivia must “first find the resources” to explore “hard.”
At least “20 wells a year” must be drilled to recover reserves, the expert told AFP.
They have hit rock bottom
On Tuesday the president warned that the industry “has been falling to the bottom.”
“There is gas in the country, (but) you have to invest (…) to consolidate those exploration reserves,” Arce emphasized.
The state-owned YPFB announced an investment of 669 million dollars in the sector together with private companies, of which almost half will go to exploration in search of new reserves.
According to Arce, the replacement of reserves will take five to seven years.
“If today we discover a well, if we hurry up in three, four years, we are going to be exporting maybe in 7 years, depending on many factors“, estimated the president.
In 2014, gas was Bolivia’s main source of income, reaching 7.1% of GDP, according to data from the state National Institute of Statistics.
In 2022, exports fell to represent 3.9% of GDP, below mining, agricultural products and food.
gas markets
Bolivia currently sells Argentina between 16 and 18 million cubic meters per day (mmcd) and to Brazil an average of 14 million mmcd. As of 2025, Argentina plans to stop depending on the Bolivian supply.
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During the Morales government, Bolivia nationalized in 2006 its natural gas reserves in the hands, then, of a dozen Spanish, English, Brazilian, British and Argentine companies.
Morales assured that Bolivia was able to provide fuel to the entire region since, according to him, the country was sitting on a “sea of gas”.
AFP
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