Bolivian government restarts ammonia and urea plant operations

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Bolivian Government restarted this Monday (6) the ammonia and urea plant operations in the center of the country after 22 months of being paralyzed due to the social and political crisis of 2019 that generated economic damage of US$450 million.

The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, participated in a ceremony together with the Minister of Hydrocarbons, Franklin Molina, the president of the state-owned Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), Wilson Zelaya, and representatives of social organizations in the town of Bulo Bulo in the central region of Cochabamba, where the petrochemical plant is located.

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Arce lamented in his speech that in the government of former transitional president Jeanine Áñez the plant was paralyzed in 2019 for 22 months and that several professionals were dismissed.

“The great damage that has been done was 450 million dollars that the country stopped earning in these last 22 months,” Arce said.

The president said that this money would have been used to start “the construction of a second plant” that would have cost US$900 million, and he instructed Minister Molina to carry out the necessary studies for this new plant to be built.

Arce went on to point out that “all the processes must be followed to determine who is guilty” of this economic damage.

This plant was paralyzed after the political and social crisis of 2019 following the failed elections that resulted in the resignation of Evo Morales from the Presidency, denouncing an alleged coup d’État.

The Bolivian president highlighted the importance of the restart of operations of this plant to “guarantee food security” and that it is a fundamental part of the reconstruction of the productive economy. “This plant will strengthen the industrialization process of our natural resources”, he said.

He added that this urea plant would be “the basis” for a “future fertilizer and agrochemical plant for agricultural production with national industry”.

For his part, Minister Molina pointed out that this plant generates work for around 480 people and more than 2,000 indirect jobs throughout the urea industrialization chain.

Bolivia started up this petrochemical plant in 2017 with a daily production capacity of 2,100 tons of urea and 1,200 tons of ammonia. State-owned YPFB indicated in May that companies from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay are interested in buying Bolivian urea.

Urea is a fertilizer made from natural gas that allows the growth of crops such as rice, corn, wheat, sugar cane, potatoes, and fruits and vegetables.