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38 | ROSEANNE FRANCO VENEZUELA | 39 about the size of Venezuela’s natural gas reserves relative to the project’s export needs, the economical viability of the project, and the extent of the proposal’s environmental costs due to the pipeline’s projected proximity to the Brazilian rainforest. On the other hand, the Venezuela-Colombia natural gas pipeline, completed in May 2007, successfully meets much of the project risk criteria. It benefits from active political support from the countries’ respective govern- ments, lower environmental impacts, and greater economic feasibility; in addi- tion, the Colombian government has developed targeted security plans to miti- gate the project’s greatest above-ground risk—facility and personnel violence. Hand in hand with regional energy integration, Chávez is also using his country’s energy wealth as a vehicle to promote social development. When Chávez entered office in 1999, some 43 percent of all Venezuelan households were living below the poverty line. To address the nation’s social needs and in an effort to bring Venezuela’s NOC closer to ‘the people,’ the Chávez govern- ment explicitly tasked PdVSA with providing funding and fostering social development. As a result, PdVSA’s social spending increased from $249 million in 2003 to $13.26 billion in 2006, with the government channeling revenues to the Economic and Social Development Fund (Fondespa) and the National Development Fund (Fonden) and neighborhood-based misiones (missions) becoming the most visible example of Chávez’s social welfare plan. Today some twenty-two social missions provide targeted care to local communities. To foment more economic development Chávez has also proposed co-ops (Social Production Companies—EPS’s) to ‘democratize’ access to business opportuni- ties within Venezuela’s oil industry and strengthen the domestic oil services sec- tor. Nonetheless, like Chávez’s regional integration agenda, energy as a mecha- nism for social development has its limits. The EPS program has been ham- pered by limited local expertise and allegations of corruption. While the gov- ernment’s missions provide fast and targeted delivery of social services, they have also been criticized for their lack of transparency and poor accountability, their negative impact on existing social programs and institutions, and the degree to which they make social welfare programs directly vulnerable to oil price fluctuations. All this is in addition to the growing concern that PdVSA’s social development funding is coming at the expense of much needed invest- ment in oil exploration and production. Other segments of the hydrocarbon industry that Chávez has tasked with development initiatives are natural gas and refining. The CIGMA industrial complex is designed to use local natural gas for petrochemicals and stimulate local industrialization. Implicit in Venezuela’s gas policy is a priority on domes- tic consumption, which increasingly takes liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports off the table. The construction of new refineries also has socioeconomic and strategic functions, as Chávez has determined refinery locations so as to gener- ate new employment and encourage migration to less populated parts of the country. In particular, Chávez seeks to support industrial activity and better integrate the center and southern regions of the country, also known as the Orinoco-Apure Axis. Historically, Venezuela has prioritized the economic devel- opment of coastal/north areas in response to the U.S. Gulf coast market. Not surprisingly, regional energy integration and social development were the foci of the first South American Energy Summit, convened by Chávez in April 2007. However, despite its good intentions, the summit yielded few concrete measures and Venezuela’s energy agenda fell flat. Chávez’s opposition to bio-fuels in response to recent U.S.-Brazil cooperation on ethanol and his proposed Gas OPEC (‘Oppegasur’) failed to gain much traction. The summit also did not revive momentum for construction of the Pipeline of the South. The lone initia- tive that appears to have survived, albeit barely, is the Bank of the South, which has been proposed as a regional alternative to existing multilateral banks. Perhaps more telling, the summit revealed that any regional energy agenda must take into account the interests of the continent’s other major energy producer—Brazil. On the whole, energy has proven to be an uneven tool for regional integration and social development for Venezuela. The government’s energy goals are quite ambi- tious, and while social development projects at home may continue to move for- ward, they divert resources from investment in the upkeep and modernization of the energy sector itself. In addition, regional energy integration efforts are long- term in nature and thus subject to more scrutiny, halting the advancement of all but the most pragmatic of his proposals. NOTES 1. The law increased royalty rates to 30 percent and mandated majority state participa- tion in all upstream oil projects. Initially unaffected, operating service agreements were forced to migrate to the new law in 2005 and the Orinoco Belt heavy oil strategic asso- ciations followed suit in 2007.PDF Image | Energy and Development in South America
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