Bolivia's Congress ratifies energy deals

LA PAZ, April 19 (Reuters) - After six months of political bickering, Bolivian lawmakers on Thursday ratified contracts signed with foreign energy companies under the country's energy nationalization.

"Let me congratulate everyone because with this decision you are backing the historic energy nationalization process," Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera told lawmakers after the vote.

The unanimous vote, rare in Bolivia's polarized Congress, could lead to a new chapter in the energy nationalization decreed by leftist President Evo Morales last year.

Morales also vowed on Thursday to negotiate a buy-out of two refineries from Brazil's state-run energy company, Petrobras (PETR4.SA) (PBR.N), the biggest investor in Bolivia's natural gas fields, which hold the second-biggest reserves in South America after Venezuela.

"Petrobras has demonstrated willingness to sell 100 percent of its shares in the refineries," Morales told reporters.

Last week, the ruling party accused the opposition-controlled Senate of trying to boycott the nationalization, a key Morales electoral promise and the backbone of his plans to bring prosperity to South America's poorest country.

The nationalization forced 10 foreign companies including France's Total (TOTF.PA) and Spain's Repsol YPF (REP.MC) to negotiate new contracts handing more profits to the state.

The deals were signed in late October, endorsed by the lower house two weeks later and ratified by the Senate in November.

However, errors in the law that ratified the contracts forced the ruling party to send the deals back to Congress in late January, where the lower chamber approved them. But the Senate scrutinized them for weeks and then bounced them back to the lower house in a different form.

Garcia Linera, who is also president of Congress, persuaded both houses to gather for the joint vote on Thursday.

Bolivian officials have said that under the new contracts, foreign companies will invest $3.5 billion over the next four years.