President Evo Morales vowed to move forward with his campaign to nationalize Bolivia's oil and gas industry while presiding Saturday over ceremonies marking the transfer of two Brazilian-owned oil refineries to state hands.Bolivia this week agreed to buy back formerly state-owned refineries from Brazilian state energy company Petroleo Brasileiro SA for $112 million. On Friday, the government announced it would negotiate the purchase of a majority share in the Bolivian operations of four more foreign companies, as dictated by Morales' nationalization decree last year. "We have not yet finished the job," Morales told a flag-waving crowd at the Guillermo Elder Bell refinery near the eastern city of Santa Cruz. "There is still work to do."
Morales was expected to attend a similar ceremony later at the Gualberto Villaroel refinery near Cochabamba. The four businesses to be targeted are: pipeline company Transredes, part owned by Royal Dutch Shell; the gas exploration company Chaco, owned by the British company BP; gas exploration company Andina, subsidiary of the Spanish-Argentine company Repsol YPF; and the Hydrocarbons Logistics Company of Bolivia, jointly owned by the German company Oiltanking GmbH and the Peruvian company Grana y Montera SA.