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LA PAZ, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Bolivia and Brazil on Monday signed a 1.2-billion-U.S. dollar agreement to explore two natural gas fields in Bolivia.
The deal, signed between Bolivian state oil company YPFB and its Brazilian counterpart, Petrobras, is valid for 40 years and is expected to extract 4 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas.
The two fields are San Telmo and Astillero in the department of Tarija in southern Bolivia.
The new agreement gives YPFB a 40 percent stake in San Telmo while Petrobras Bolivia gets the remaining 60 percent. The percentages are flipped in Astillero.
The contract will guarantee the expansion of the current gas buy-sell contract with Brazil, according to Bolivian Energy Minister Luis Sanchez.
"If the project is successful, we could produce 14 million cubic meters (MCM) of natural gas a day," said Sanchez.
An existing buy-sell contract signed between the two countries in 1996 and valid until 2019, calls for a minimum purchase of 24 MCM of natural gas and a maximum of 30.08 MCM.
