Bolivian army occupies gas fields

LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Evo Morales ordered soldiers to occupy Bolivia's natural gas fields Monday and threatened to evict foreign companies unless they give Bolivia control over the entire chain of production.

Morales sent soldiers and engineers with Bolivia's state-owned oil company to installations and fields tapped by foreign companies — including Britain's BG Group PLC and BP PLC, Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF SA, France's Total SA and U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp. The companies have six months to agree to new contracts or leave Bolivia, he said.

Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said troops were sent to 56 locations around the country.

Soldiers took over major gas fields and refineries and, in the eastern city of Santa Cruz where much of the industry is based, occupied some oil company offices, said Tuffi Are, news editor at the El Deber newspaper, one of Bolivia's largest. He said about 100 soldiers were guarding the Petrobras refinery just outside the city.

Morales, a leftist allied with Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in seeking to blunt U.S. influence in the region, had pledged to exert greater state control over the industry since winning election in December, becoming Bolivia's first Indian president.

"The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources," Morales said in a speech from the San Alberto field in southern Bolivia operated by Petrobras in association with Repsol and Total SA.

"The looting by the foreign companies has ended," Morales declared.

Brazil is Bolivia's biggest natural gas client, followed by Argentina, and Brazil's demand has been rising rapidly due to power generation, cooking and automotive needs.

Landlocked Bolivia must sell to its neighbors because it lacks a pipeline to ship gas to the Pacific Ocean and from there to Asia, Mexico or the United States.

Any price jolts would mostly be felt in Argentina and Brazil, but Bolivia already has been seeking to boost prices for customers in both countries.

The announcement follows a trend by oil- and gas-rich Latin American nations to exact a larger share of profits from extraction of the fossil fuels.

It comes as Ecuador argues with Washington over a new oil royalties law and less than a month after Chavez ordered the seizure of oil fields from Total and Italy's Eni SpA when the companies failed to comply with a government demand that operations be turned over to Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA.