Official sources indicate that this company will generate cash inflows of more than $5,900 million in the year that is coming to an end.
On December 21, 1936, the government of David Toro, advised by Lieutenant Colonel Germán Busch and engineer Dionisio Foianini, among others, founded YPFB.
The American Standard Oil Company was the one who discovered oil in Bermejo (1924), Sanandita (1926), Camiri (1927) and Camatindi (1931), but without creating wealth for the country.
It was accused of defrauding the state and smuggling “black gold” into Argentina and Paraguay while refusing to supply that gasoline to the Bolivian armed forces during the Chaco War (1932-35).
In 1935, President José Luís Tejada sued the company for fraud and smuggling, and on March 13, 1937, the Toro government signed the first nationalization and confiscation of assets to Standard Oil, the Ministry of Hydrocarbons recalled. In 1956, during the government of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, the Petroleum Code created unfavorable conditions for the state in the concession, exploration and exploitation of this resource.
In this regard, the second nationalization took place on October 17, 1969, when the government of Alfredo Ovando, in the presence of the Minister of Mines and Petroleum, Marcelo Quiroga, and General Juan José Torres, nationalized Gulf Oil’s assets.
Between 1994 and 1997, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s government initiated a process of “capitalization” of state-owned companies, effectively splitting the YPFB into private companies that paid the country only 18 percent of their profits in royalties.
The so-called gas war that took place in El Alto during the second term of Sánchez de Lozada (2002-2003), when attempts to export natural gas through Chilean ports to the United States and Mexico were rejected, cannot be ignored in this story .
The military crackdown left more than 60 dead and 400 injured, and as a result of these events, Bolivia’s first referendum on hydrocarbons was held on July 18, 2004, leading to their regaining public ownership.
Finally, after the election victory of President Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo, a third nationalization took place.
Since then, YPFB controls the exploration, exploitation, transportation, refining, storage and commercialization of natural gas, oil and its derivatives in the internal and external markets.
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