Bolivia’s primary source of income, natural gas, is running out as a result of a lack of investment in the search for fresh deposits, a senior official claimed on Wednesday.
According to Armin Dorgathen, head of state oil company YPFB, the nation’s production has decreased since 2014, he told reporters in Santa Cruz, an eastern city.
“There were not a lot of exploration projects,” he added.
On Tuesday, President Luis Arce, had also warned of a decline in production until “hitting rock bottom.”
“We have lost many gas reserves,” the president said at a public event in the city of Oruro.
“These gas reserves have not been replenished and the country therefore does not have the capacity to produce more gas,” he said.
Bolivia’s natural gas reserves, according to the most recent data, are 8.95 trillion cubic feet.
According to Dorgathen, production has decreased from 59 million cubic meters per day in 2014 to 37 now.
Bolivia not only supplies the domestic market but also Argentina and Brazil with gas.
According to the independent Bolivian Institute of Foreign Trade, the country’s natural gas industry generated more revenue in 2022—$2.9 billion—than either its mining or agricultural industries combined.
According to Dorgathen, this year will see an investment of $669 million in exploration.
Bolivia nationalized its natural gas reserves in 2006 while Evo Morales was president; up until that point, they had been held by businesses from Spain, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Argentina.
He said that because Bolivia was sitting on “a sea” of the resource at the time, it could supply gas to the entire area.
