Welcome denialism!
With the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, a political earthquake has been generated that has its aftershocks in the energy field. To the cry of “Drill, baby, drill”, regulations, decades-long policies to diversify the energy matrix and global goals to reduce the disastrous effects of growing greenhouse gas emissions have been ignored. […]
Are lithium contracts profitable?
I wonder if the lithium contracts between YLB and Russian and Chinese companies are profitable. The answer is negative, due to the low internacional price of Lithium Carbonate, now and in the next years.
Lithium contracts: a desperate bet
This column is a general analysis on the Lithium contract for YLB, the nacional lithium corporation, with Uranium One Goup, a Russia Based company.
Electric cars in Bolivia: an obstacle course
The fuel crisis in Bolivia has two structural solutions, in the sense that both aim to reduce the demand for liquid fuels. The first is to convert cars with petrol engines to CNG (Car Natural Gas). The irrefutable convenience of this conversion for the user and for the State has already been demonstrated and I […]
Sell low to buy high
About the insane policy to sell low natural gas to Brazil in order to buy high petrol for domestic consumption and a structural response to this loss.
It’s no longer a crisis, it’s a collapse
Bolivia suffers from fuel shortages, which can be felt in the endless queues at the pumps. It is a crisis that is approaching an energy collapse, not yet as serious as the one suffered by Cuba and Ecuador, but which is going in that direction. We know the causes, but we understand less about YPFB’s […]
What the MAS neglected
According to President Luis Arce, the disaster of the MAS’s energy policy is due to the fact that “nationalization has been neglected.” In fact, the president criticized the governments that preceded him (omitting that he was the “super minister” of the economic area) who devoted themselves to monetizing the gas reserves inherited from liberal governments, […]
State holdings
This week I’m breaking a 25-year-old tradition of fortnightly columns, so I don’t let the topic of Public Enterprises (PE) introduced in my previous installment cool down. The basic concept for answering what to do with PEs is “State Participation”, i.e., the way in which the State intervenes directly in the economy. In a country […]
What to do with state-owned enterprises?
It is said that a Spanish peasant went to visit a convent and was amazed by the row of half-busts that adorned the cloister. While a friar explained to him that it was St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Francis, and so on, the farmer could not help but comment: “From the belt upwards I too […]
Hic sunt leones
“Here are the lions” said the Romans about an unknown region, full of dangers; a saying that fully fits the “three-headed” referendum that President Arce has announced, venturing into a political terrain full of unknowns and populated by “lions” ready to feast. I will not dwell on the two referendums that aim to amend the […]