Spensy Pimentel
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Vienna (Austria) - The minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, affirmed today (12) that the Southern Gas Pipeline will be unfeasible without the participation of Petrobras. The pipeline is intended to link all of South America, from Venezuela to Argentina.

"If Petrobras does not participate in the Southern Gas Pipeline, there will be no Southern Gas Pipeline," Amorim declared in a collective interview with reporters at the 4th Latin American-Caribbean-European Union Summit. "Or else it will have to make such a big detour that it will turn into the Western Gas Pipeline."

The Brazilian chancellor made these comments in response to a question about a statement made yesterday (11) in La Paz, Bolivia, by the Bolivian minister of Hydrocarbons, Andres Soliz Rada. According to reports appearing in today's press, Rada asserted that Bolivia will not accept Petrobras' participation in the project, because the Brazilian company is controlled by transnational capital.

Translation: David Silberstein