LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivia’s state energy firm has sealed a deal to supply gas to Russian fertilizer giant Acron’s plants in Brazil, the two sides said on Thursday, opening up a potentially important new market for the landlocked South American country.
Bolivian state-owned YPFB agreed the sale of 2.2 million cubic meters of natural gas per day to the Russian firm for a 20-year period from 2023.
“Today we consolidated a new market for Bolivian gas,” said the Bolivian hydrocarbons minister Luis Alberto Sánchez.
The government also agreed to establish with Acron a company for the sale of urea in Brazil. Acron is one of the biggest fertilizer makers in the world and supplies urea to Brazilian farmers.
YPFB will also get a 12% stake in the Russian company’s Tres Lagunas plant, with the option to raise that to 30%.
The Bolivian minister also said YPFB and Russia’s Gazprom had completed negotiation of a contract for the exploration and exploitation of the Vitiacua area, a reservoir of natural gas with recoverable resources estimated at 2.13 trillion cubic feet (TCF).
According to the official, that project would require an investment of some $1.1 billion, and the project could produce an estimated 12 million cubic meters per day of gas by 2028.
Reporting by Danny Ramos; writing by Adam Jourdan, editing by G Crosse
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