Porto Alegre, July 8, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The governors that make up the Southern Development and Integration Council (Codesul) will forward a document to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the Ministry of Mines and Energy, calling for the construction of a gas pipeline to connect Brazil and Argentina along the 550 kilometers between Uruguaiana and Porto Alegre. This decision was taken Monday (7) at a meeting of the Council in the state capital building in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. According to the governors, this measure offers an alternative to Bolivian natural gas, regarded as "poorly competitive" by the governors of Rio Grande do Sul, Germano Rigotto; Santa Catarina, Luiz Henrique da Silveira; Paraná, Roberto Requião; and Mato Grosso do Sul, José Orcírio Miranda dos Santos, "Zeca of the PT."

In the document, which was also signed by the governors of the Argentinian provinces of Entre-Rios, Sérgio Montiel, and Corrientes, Ricardo Colombi, the governors explain that the Brazil-Argentina gas pipeline, if it is implanted, will transport 12 million cubic meters of gas per day; 2.5 million cubic meters will be transported to Santa Catarina and Paraná reversing the existing system. The governors consider it to be a strategic move to complete the gas pipeline energy network interconnecting the natural gas reserves of Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia.

To justify the demand, the document refers to the possibility of greater energy integration in the context of the Mercosur and the South of Brazil; the poor competitive conditions of natural gas imported from Bolivia, currently the only source of this input for states in the South of Brazil; the possibility of providing another source of natural gas in the South of Brazil, strengthening its position in the Brazilian energy matrix; the contribution of natural gas to preservation of the environment; and the possibility of an immediate reverse use of the south branch of the Bolivian Gas Pipeline (Gasbol), permitting the transportation, in an initial phase, of up to 2.5 million cubic meters of natural gas per day through Santa Catarina and Paraná. (DAS)