MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia takes full control over British owned gas pipeline

Bolivia continued Monday with its nationalizing policy taking over all assets belonging to the gas pipeline company Transredes which is half owned by Royal Dutch Shell and Ashmore Energy International.

President Evo Morales decree argues that the foreign companies had been too slow in negotiating a new deal with the government. Transredes transports natural gas to Bolivia's main country clients, Brazil and Argentina. Morales said Ashmore executives had initially agreed to sell some of their 25% stake in Transredes to the Bolivian government owned energy company YPFB, as had been instructed on May first. "We waited patiently all month, but the actions they took were totally different," Morales said during the signing ceremony in the eastern city of Santa Cruz. "They wanted to be bosses, and have us acting as employees", he added. The Bolivian president insisted that "partners are welcome, but we will not accept bosses". Since his 2005 election as Bolivia's first indigenous president Morales has repeatedly moved to exert greater government control over the country's natural gas fields - the second largest in South America, after Venezuela's. This has been extensive to other industries such as electricity and cement. Part of Bolivia's energy industry was privatized in the 1990s, with foreign companies taking 50% stakes. Last month Bolivia's state energy company took a majority stake in Spanish-owned Andina, one of the country's biggest energy companies which exploits oil and gas fields, and owns a 50% stake in two giant gas fields. It has also taken over, by state decree, the control of Chaco from BP and Pan American Energy. A Transredes spokesperson in Bolivia could not immediately be reached for comment.