Latin American petroleum sector at crossroads

Journal Article · Mon Jul 06 00:00:00 EDT 1992 · Oil and Gas Journal; (United States)

OSTI ID:7205089

Williams, B

This paper reports that Latin America's petroleum industry stands at a precarious crossroads of change. Fundamental changes of democratization, privatization, and economic reform that have marked South America's petroleum sectors since the late 1980s are seeping into other Latin American regions. An unprecedented return of capital that had fled the region in the 1980s - Latin America's lost decade - is under way in full force. That demonstrates the improved credibility of the region's economic reform programs, reports the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Even as those reform efforts marked progress in South America in 1991, however, that progress has been threatened in 1992 by political scandal, government crisis, and environmental controversy. Just as the fitful transition to capitalism in the former U.S.S.R. has threatened to collapse the former Soviet republics into chaos because of its economic fallout, so has economic reform in such nations as Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela stumbled. On the other hand, privatization continues apace in Argentina and Mexico. Those Latin American nations and others caught in the rising tide of privatization pulled by an increasingly market oriented global economy continue to avow their commitment to economic reform.

• OSTI ID: 7205089
• Journal Information: Oil and Gas Journal; (United States), Vol. 90:27; ISSN 0030-1388
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
LATIN AMERICA
PETROLEUM INDUSTRY
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
GOVERNMENT POLICIES
MARKET
PLANNING
POLITICAL ASPECTS
ECONOMICS
INDUSTRY
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
020700* - Petroleum- Economics
Industrial
& Business Aspects
294002 - Energy Planning & Policy- Petroleum