Bolivia does not use pipelines for fuel transportation, and there would be no raw material to activate the biodiesel plants under construction, aimed at replacing approximately 22% of the demand by 2030. Therefore, the importation of crude vegetable oil from Brazil is being considered.

Issue 124 | 2023

Vesna Marinkovic U.

“Bolivia spends 1.2 million dollars per day on freight to distribute it among approximately 3,500 tankers that transport diesel and gasoline, mainly from Paraguay and Argentina, without utilizing the existing pipeline infrastructure in the country. Consequently, in this matter, one sector is getting richer, and another sector is becoming poorer,” stated Carlos Alberto Poveda, former Engineering Manager at Petrobras-Bolivia.

“How can it be explained that they are importing around 1,200 barrels per day, per tanker, from Argentina and delivering it to the Tigüipa pumping station or the Pocitos station when they have the pipeline?” he questioned.

“A TANKER CARTEL”

He asserts that this situation occurs because Bolivia operates “a tanker cartel” responsible for transporting these hydrocarbons for domestic consumption while there are non-operational pipelines, such as the Carrasco-Cochabamba pipeline that cost the country about 45 million dollars. “The Carrasco pipelines to Santa Cruz are around 30% occupied, and the pipelines from the South, expanded to transport up to 59,000 barrels per day, are now transporting what little San Alberto field produces,” Poveda added.

He also mentioned that Bolivia currently imports diesel and gasoline from wherever it can. “Even YPFB has created a subsidiary company, based in Paraguay, called Boltrans, which buys from Pan American Energy at 60 dollars per barrel and sells to YPFB at 80.” In this context, he specified that “there is a higher power against the government that has twisted its arm,” adding that “it is an oligarchy that is ultimately a cartel, just like the microsystem in the city of Santa Cruz.”

He recalled that Bolivia has the capacity to handle the import of 22,000 barrels per day per pipeline only from the Pocitos terminal on the border with Argentina. Still, it could eliminate the monopoly of the “tankers” in terms of diesel transportation for the domestic market.

“There is that capacity, there are those pipelines,” he emphasized, noting that there is a scenario of pipelines and low-utilization refineries, recommending taking initiatives to make these capacities stop being “junk” and using them positively for the fuel supply in Bolivia. He assured that these are scenarios rarely discussed in the country.

“SHIFTING TO RENEWABLES OR MAINTAINING THE HYDROCARBON PROFILE?”

Asked whether the solution to this crisis in the sector involved “shifting” to renewables or insisting on maintaining a hydrocarbon profile for Bolivia, Subirana said that renewable energies are indeed a global trend, but the problem is their low efficiency. He emphasized the high cost of their generation, acknowledging, however, that the sector’s crisis forces considering practically all possible alternatives.

“We are no longer the producer-exporter but a consumer-importer since the brutal fall of the hydrocarbon sector in 2014 forces us to consider what role we will play geopolitically, we have to accept that we will become an importing country, hopefully temporarily, and we have to work to make that transition as soon as possible, adjusting the regulations to attract investments that can revitalize the hydrocarbon sector,” Subirana added.

“Otherwise, we will be condemned to have more idle capacity, less utilization in both the transportation and processing systems, and obviously confront increasingly complex situations regarding the supply of hydrocarbons in the country,” he noted.

“CAN THE HYDROCARBON SECTOR STILL BE LEVERAGED?”

 According to Carlos Poveda, the investment allocated by YPFB for exploration and exploitation is greater than the gross income that YPFB has. Therefore, he claims that the state oil company does not have the means to even face the challenge of the $400 million it plans to execute in exploratory projects.

“It needs risky investments. On the other hand, the Hydrocarbons Law was evidently a hindrance that only quickly monetized what had already been discovered years before, and there were still development investments to be made. In 2009, MAS comes up with the new Political Constitution of the State to the point that if we want a radical change, we have to modify the entire legal framework because YPFB cannot continue to be in charge of the entire hydrocarbon chain,” he said as a recommendation to boost the sector in Bolivia.

NO RAW MATERIAL FOR BIOFUELS

Asked about the viability of biofuels in the Bolivian energy matrix, he said that the fundamental problem is that there is no raw material to activate the three plants that the current government has on the agenda as an alternative for replacing diesel and gasoline imports.

He said that as part of an investigation, it has been established that both CAO and ANAPO have committed all their crude vegetable oil for export unless the government decides to use it under pressure measures, jeopardizing the country’s oil industry, as a strategy strictly electoral.