President Mesa declined to sign or veto the oil and gas tax bill on his desk Tuesday. As a result, the Senate leader ratified it this morning. Energy royalties will now be raised to 18%, on top of 32% taxes, both steep hikes. The move is expected to chase out $10 billion in foreign investment, delivering to Bolivia a great gas future under the ground. The news item is here.

Bloomberg reports that huge projects have been shelved:

Kieffer said projects such as a $1.5 billion petrochemical plant and a $400 million fertilizer project, both of which depended on tapping gas reserves, will not be built. …

Pacific LNG’s $5 billion liquefied natural gas project, a joint venture of Repsol, BG Group and and London-based BP Plc to export to Mexico is in jeopardy, he said. Also in danger of being frozen are Repsol’s $1.5 billion plan to increase production at its natural gas fields and Petrobras’s $3 billion in gas pipelines, processing plants and fields, Kieffer said.

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