All in a Day's Work

Following a visit with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Marxist dictator Fidel Castro (a cozy little troika), Bolivia's newly elected president, Evo Morales, nationalized his country's oil and gas industry, appropriately on May Day. The Washington Post:

Bolivian President Evo Morales seized control of the country's natural gas industry Monday, sending soldiers to occupy fields that he contends private companies have plundered for years.

Morales said that unless foreign energy firms agreed to give Bolivia's state oil company oversight of production and a majority of their revenue generated in Bolivia, the government would evict them from the fields.

Tribune:

The Bolivian government's plan appeared to be less of an outright takeover of foreign assets than a mandatory sale of most assets to the government energy concern. Morales had said he would not take the expropriation route and has indicated a willingness to allow some foreign corporations to remain as minority shareholders under his new terms.

Bolivia has the continent's second-largest natural gas reserves, after Venezuela, but most of its capacity remains untapped because of a lack of infrastructure and investment. Much of its gas is sold to neighboring Brazil and Argentina. Bolivia ranks 44th in the world in natural gas production, according to the CIA World Factbook. Petroleum production is less significant.

Morales and his aides depicted the move as a bold stroke for the man who rose in 10 years from a regional representative of coca leaf growers--the raw ingredient in cocaine--to become the first Indian president of a nation that is largely of Indian and mixed-race origins.

It was unclear where Bolivia would secure the funds to purchase the private assets for its state energy concern, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos, and how much the government would be willing to pay: market value or a price dictated by the Bolivian government.

International corporations say they have invested about $3.5 billion in the Bolivian energy sector since the mid-1990s, when the formerly state-run industry was privatized in a move that Morales harshly criticized during his successful campaign. Investors worry that they won't be able to recoup the monetary resources they plowed into Bolivian gas fields, pipeline and other infrastructure.

All in a day's work for a socialist leader on May Day. You hardly had to lift a finger President Morales. Now what?