MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

End of gas contract between Bolivia and Argentina to be brought forward?

Argentina “is rushing” its self-supply project, Basteiro explained

Argentina's Ambassador to Bolivia Ariel Basteiro Friday said an addendum to the current agreement will bring forward from 2026 to mid-2024 the end of the gas purchase contract between the two countries.

”The contract was to end in 2026, perhaps we have to end up making an addendum that modifies the final date of the contract (...) This is supposed to be until the middle of the year (2024),“ the diplomat said during a press conference ”in view of Bolivia's warning that it will not be able to meet the required quantities.”

In this scenario, Argentina decided to speed up its energy self-supply project and inaugurated the first section of the new President Néstor Kirchner Gas Pipeline (GPNK) to achieve “energy sovereignty” at the earliest. The second stage of the project consists of the continuation of the work up to the locality of San Jerónimo, in the province of Santa Fe, which would allow its connection with the Argentine Northeast Gas Pipeline (GNEA).

Basteiro said that Argentina “is rushing this project to have it finished before June or July” next year and to face the coming winter, which is when consumption goes up.

“We are working to have the autonomy that was perhaps projected to begin to be used by the end of 2024 by the middle of 2024,” the ambassador stressed.

Gas used to be Bolivia's main export product and the mainstay of its economic growth, with Brazil and Argentina as its main markets, but in recent years there has been a decline in output.

Last week, President Luis Arce Catacora acknowledged for the first time that since 2014 “there has been a decline in production” of gas “which unfortunately has been falling to the bottom.”

The state-owned Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) said it has a plan for Bolivia to recover its position in gas production and that there could be a favorable “inflection” from 2025.

The last certification of Bolivian hydrocarbon reserves, dating from December 2018, indicated that the country has 10.7 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas, while a report by the Ministry of Hydrocarbons in 2019 established that they dropped to 8.79 TCF.

According to the Bolivian Institute of Foreign Trade (IBCE), Bolivia went from being the eighth largest gas exporter in the world in 2013 to the 15th place in 2022.