Bolivia will send 7.5 cubic meters of gas daily to Argentina for two months

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The state-owned oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) will send 7.5 million cubic meters per day (MMmcd) of natural gas to Argentina for the next two months and is also working to reach a volume of 12 million cubic meters per day in winter.

“The Argentine market requires seasonality in natural gas; they consume less natural gas during the summer and more natural gas during the winter,” explained the executive president of the state oil company, Armin Dorgathen, in a YPFB bulletin.

The president indicated that they reached an agreement with the state-owned Integración Energética Argentina Sociedad Anónima (IEASA) to send 7.5 million cubic meters per day of natural gas at the same sales price to that market. He also pointed out that Argentina is a “brother country” and that both countries have a contract in common, so they are working to generate “seasonality” in the shipment of natural gas to that market.

Local media report that the agreement to send these volumes is included in the sixth addendum to the initial contract with the neighboring country. The fifth addendum indicates that 8 million cubic meters per day were delivered to Argentina from October to December last year. In addition, the Boicobo Sur X-1 and Margarita X-10 wells, in both of which the Spanish company Repsol participates, are expected to contribute additional volumes from approximately the middle of the year.

The summer period runs from January to April and from October to December. The winter period is from May to September, the time of highest demand for Bolivian gas by the neighboring country. Dorgathen also stated that he is negotiating with Brazil, another of Bolivia’s main gas markets.

“This is still in technical work since we need to send the remaining gas, in counter seasonality, to Brazil”, said the president of the state-owned company. Natural gas has been Bolivia’s main export product and the mainstay of the Bolivian economy in the last two decades, with its main markets in Argentina and Brazil.

With information from EFE