PRESIDENT Hugo Chavez said recently that his ambitious plan to build a South American gas pipeline is “on hold” since neighbouring countries have turned their back on the project. “There have been attacks against the project coming from the same South American countries,” Chavez said during televised remarks, in apparent reference to Brazil. “So now the project has cooled. There were no more meetings (to discuss the plan). So in the end the project cooled … We can’t force a gas pipeline to the south.”
The president’s words mark the first time he has cast doubt on the large-scale project of which he was as strong proponent, although observers criticized it as quixotic. Mr Chavez had vowed to create an 8,000- to 15,000-km gas pipeline connecting Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina, as part of his plan to cement stronger regional ties in the Southern Cone. Under the plan, Venezuela promised to sell gas to its neighbours at below-market prices. “We would never sell gas to South American neighbours at the same price we sell to developed countries,” Chavez has said. “If we did this for money, we would only sell gas to the north.”
The $20-billion (approx) plan involves a pipeline from Venezuela’s oil- and gas-producing region close to the Orinoco River through Brazil’s Amazon region south to Argentina, and linked to Bolivia and, possibly, other countries. Energy analysts have said that the plan is likely to fail because of prohibitive costs, and that shipping the gas by sea in liquefied form to would be more efficient.
Recently, officials from Brazil’s Petrobras have said the pipeline would take decades to build, not the five to seven years proposed by Venezuelan officials.