I paraphrase a phrase of my grandmothers to indicate that warnings are not negative criticisms but sincere wishes to avoid problems that approach.
The current hydrocarbon crisis in Bolivia is not the product of a meteorite falling from the sky, or an unpredictable earthquake, but the natural result of mistakes, omissions, amateurism and even corruption, of those who have led the energy sector whose names we all know all too well.
Since the entry into force of Law 3058 on hydrocarbons and DS 28701, several “pundits” (a despicable definition of industry analysts coined by current President Luis Arce) have alerted the government and public opinion to the dangers looming over the most important sector of the national economy and subnational governments. Telling all the warning signs (sometimes shouts) of alarm is the subject of a degree thesis (of journalism or psychiatry), so in what follows, I will limit myself to citing the warnings of some analysts, indicating the relative links.
Already in 2007, at the dawn of “nationalization”, the lawyer Víctor Hugo Carazas had warned, together with the Chamber of Hydrocarbons, about the lack of legal certainty to “trigger” the investments that the oil companies were willing to make, but which over time were limited to investments in extraction. In short, there was so much gas that there was no need to look for more, the nationalizers thought.
Faced with the proliferation of development strategies and plans, Raúl Velásquez of the “Fundación Jubileo’, in 2012 questioned the government about the low budget that YPFB and companies have allocated for exploration and returned to the charge in 2018 to warn of the deficit of almost 14 million cubic meters of gas to achieve the objectives of these chimerical plans.
In turn, the late Carlos Miranda P. in 2016 denounced with figures and arguments the failure of nationalizations and the risks of insisting on that policy. Along the same lines, Hugo del Granado C. explained to the point of exhaustion why exploration was on the wrong track and left “to the luck of successful drilling.”
Regarding the “downstream” issues, Susana Anaya, a respected professional forced to expatriate, reflected on the unsustainability of maintaining subsidized domestic prices and the consequences on exploration. Already three years ago it was clear that the incomes from the sale of gas would not even be enough to compensate for the fuel subsidy.
Similarly, Mauricio Medinaceli, another brilliant economist in the sector forced to leave the country clearly demonstrated in his blog the absurdity of the price structure of the internal market and the sterility of the improvised measures that have been taken to patch up the mistakes of the past.
The interviews and writings of Álvaro Ríos Roca, who warned about the inconsistencies of gas policy, would fill a volume. His cry of alarm was constant and solid on the importance of exploration, on the inadequacy of corrective regulations, on the imminent shortage of diesel, gasoline and even LPG and gas, and on the metamorphosis from an exporting country to an energy importer and transporter.
For my part, through opinion columns and interviews, I have suggested structural measures to stop the collapse of the gas economy and the consequent energy crisis. The option of a gradual energy transition, an urgent necessity for Bolivia, led me to develop in 2020, together with prominent colleagues, a Roadmap to carry out this task.
In short, they have been opportunely and repeatedly warned but, as it was said 2000 years ago, “there is no worse deaf person than he who does not want to listen” (Mt 13:14) and leaves a country in ruins.