LatinNews Daily - 16 July 2024

*Bolivia’s President Luis Arce has said that a new natural gas well in Alto Beni municipality, La Paz department, will be the country’s third largest with estimated reserves of 1.7trn cubic feet of gas. Arce said that the government had invested US$44m in exploration at the Mayaya Centro-X1IE gas well, and is expecting a more detailed assessment of the extent of the reserves by October. Bolivia has for years been struggling with dwindling natural gas production, which has contributed to shortages of hard currency and raised questions over the sustainability of the Arce government’s social policies. Arce said that the new discovery “marks the start of a new chapter… offering the hope of maintaining our country as an important exporter of gas, driving a second era of hydrocarbon production, and putting La Paz on the map as a new hydrocarbon-producing department”. Bolivia’s state-owned hydrocarbon company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), which carried out the exploration work, is aiming to drill a further three wells at the site.