Paraguay has interest in pipeline project

Asuncion
President Nicanor Duarte expressed interest Friday in Paraguay’s joining a potential project for a pipeline to carry natural gas from Bolivia to Uruguay.

Paraguay’s commitment to consider taking part in the prospective initiative was one of the points in a joint declaration signed by Duarte and visiting Uruguayan counterpart Tabaré Vázquez.

“The president of Paraguay manifested his government’s interest in participating in such negotiations, particularly in the construction of a gas pipeline, taking into account that the shortest distance (from Bolivia) to the centers of consumption is through Paraguayan territory,” the document said.

Though Bolivia and Paraguay share a common border, a conduit would still have to cross Argentine and/or Brazilian territory to reach Uruguay.

Bolivia has estimated reserves of 48 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, most of it
in southeastern fields near its borders with Argentina and Paraguay, and the idea of a pipeline to Uruguay was first discussed by La Paz and Montevideo in 2004.

During a visit to La Paz earlier this week, Vázquez and Bolivia’s new president, Evo Morales, decided to revive the plan and to invite Paraguay’s participation.

“The energy crisis is an issue that requires much imagination, much talent and, as President Vázquez said to me, not only solidarity, (but) fundamentally justice, fair treatment,” Duarte said Friday at a joint press conference with the Uruguayan.

Duarte added that his and other less-developed South American countries “don’t always receive fair treatment in Mercosur and in the region.”

The Southern Cone Common Market, or Mercosur, comprises Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Venezuela in the process of joining. Because their economies are much smaller – and in Paraguay’s case, far poorer – than those of Brazil and Argentina, Asunción and Montevideo exercise little clout within the bloc.