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Bolivian Fiscal Oilfields (YPFB) won a constitutional protection against the Tarijeña de Gas Company (Emtagas) on the commercialization and transportation of hydrocarbons both in Tarija and in the Chaco of that region.
“The members of the Fourth Constitutional Chamber of La Paz determined that only YPFB has the right to exercise in the hydrocarbon chain and their marketing area. We consider that from an analysis carried out by any legal expert, one can only reach the conclusion that by the express mandate of the Political Constitution of the State that comes from the 2004 referendum, the people have decided that the hydrocarbons be recovered and YPFB be the one who handles them”, affirmed the lawyer of the state oil company, Daniel Aguilar.
All this has been highlighted in the hearing and the magistrates took this aspect into account, and agreed with the criteria, Aguilar mentioned.
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In 2019, the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) identified that the service provided by Emtagas in Chaco and Tarija was “inefficient”.
“Those inspections have motivated us to request a license. At the end of 2020, the de facto minister Víctor Hugo Zamora, through a ministerial resolution, revoked our license. In 2020 we filed a lawsuit in Sucre, before the Supreme Court of Justice, asking that the revocation be annulled, ”says the regulator.
In January 2022, the Supreme Court of Justice issued a ruling stating that the resolution made by Zamora was valid since YPFB had minimal shares in Emtagas, according to the state oil company’s press release.
“That is to say, it did not matter who operates there. That is an error that we could not accept, nor validate, nor admit that is why we have gone to constitutional justice”, added the jurist.
YPFB added that it celebrates the guardianship granted by the Fourth Constitutional Chamber of the city of La Paz.
