Bolivia: Fuel Subsidy Cuts Spark Protests In Bolivia

Fuel Subsidy Cuts Spark Protests in Bolivia Bolivia Bolivia saw nationwide protests this week as unions launched a general strike against President Rodrigo Paz’s decision to scrap long-standing fuel subsidies, a move the government claims is necessary to stabilize an economy facing severe dollar shortages and its worst crisis in four decades, MercoPress reported Tuesday. On Monday, thousands of miners, coca growers, and labor activists took to the streets on the first day of the strike, with demonstrations and roadblocks disrupting activity in La Paz, El Alto, and other major cities. Police sealed off access to central government buildings in La Paz, while highways were blocked in six of the country’s nine regions, according to Bolivia’s highway administration agency. The protests, called by the Bolivian Workers’ Union (COB), focused on Decree 5503, issued last week by Paz, who took office in November. The decree ended fuel subsidies that had been in place for more than 20 years under previous left-wing governments and had kept gasoline prices at about $0.53 per liter. Under the new rules, prices rose to around $1 per liter. Paz defended his decision, saying Bolivia was spending about $10 million a day “on a subsidy that benefits smugglers,” who have been reselling fuel domestically and abroad. The government has argued that fuel imports – which cost up to $3 billion a year – have drained foreign currency reserves and worsened economic turmoil after the decline of natural gas exports. Officials noted that eliminating the subsidies will ease dollar shortages and help companies import goods and capital. Business groups have backed the measures, while some trade unions have also accepted the changes. Bus drivers stayed away from the strike after the government offered duty-free imports of auto parts, while Paz also mandated a 20 percent increase in the minimum wage, the Associated Press added. Other unions – particularly those aligned with former leftist President Evo Morales – rejected the cuts and leaders accused the government of favoring business interests. Analyst Carlos Cordero told AP that the strike aimed to “show its strength” ahead of next year’s municipal and regional elections. However, he noted that Monday’s turnout was low, suggesting that the union has been weakened and many sectors of the government believe the cuts were “necessary.” Despite limited participation from some unions, COB leaders vowed to remain on the streets until the subsidy cuts are reversed.

Falklands Oil Megaproject Breaks Free After 15 Years

Falklands Oil Megaproject Breaks Free After 15 Years By Natalia Katona, 1 days ago After 15 years of delay, redesign, and skepticism, the Sea Lion oil project has finally crossed the line from ambition to execution. On December 10, partners Navitas Petroleum (Israel) and Rockhopper Exploration (UK) took a long-awaited final investment decision (FID) on what will become the largest deepwater oil development in the South Atlantic outside Brazil. Few projects of comparable scale have taken so long to move from discovery to sanction, and fewer still have done so under such persistent political, legal and financial headwinds. With FID now secured, Sea Lion formally enters the development phase, planned to last 35 years or longer, with first oil targeted for 2028. Discovered in 2010 by Rockhopper Exploration, Sea Lion was the Falkland Islands’ first commercial oil find, but its remote location and legal difficulties made it vulnerable to shifts in capital investment. Premier Oil’s $1 billion entry in 2012 was meant to accelerate development, yet the post-2014 oil price slump and the retreat of listed companies from capital-intensive frontier projects left Sea Lion effectively frozen until the end of the decade. That changed with the arrival of Israel’s Navitas Petroleum in 2020. Initially a minority investor, Navitas became the project’s operator and majority owner in 2021 after Harbour Energy exited, restructuring both ownership and financing. The shift replaced public-market caution with private capital willing to absorb long-cycle risk — a change that ultimately unlocked the project and led to the FID. Related: Top Exporters Boosted Natural Gas Supply in October Sea Lion contains approximately 315 million barrels of recoverable crude oil, producing a sweet, low-sulphur grade with 28–29° degrees API and just 0.2% sulphur. Development has been designed in phases to manage capital intensity and reservoir performance. The sanctioned Phase 1 targets 170 million barrels of oil, with peak production of 50,000 b/d and 11 wells planned, while first oil is expected in 2028. Phase 2 is planned to recover a further 144 million barrels, with 12 additional wells to be drilled roughly three years after first oil to extend the production plateau. The entire field will be developed around a single redeployed Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel. Navitas’ role has been central to unlocking the project. By the time it entered, the project had become too capital-intensive and politically exposed for publicly listed companies constrained by balance-sheet discipline and shareholder scrutiny. Navitas Petroleum, by contrast, has built its strategy around long-cycle offshore developments, particularly FPSO-based projects, where bespoke financing, patience and tolerance for high geopolitical risk are essential. That approach was proven in Israel’s Leviathan gas field, where Navitas held a 7.5% stake through construction, saw first gas in 2019, and exited in 2021 via a sale to Mubadala Petroleum once the project had been de-risked. A similar pattern played out at the Shenandoah deepwater project in the Gulf of Mexico. There, Navitas acquired 49% and operatorship of a stalled development, restructured legacy debt and helped secure a $1 billion financing package in 2021 backed by Israeli banks and institutional investors. Shenandoah came onstream in early 2025 and is now generating cash flow, reinforcing Navitas’ ability to revive projects others could not advance. Sea Lion now follows Navitas’ established strategy. After the Israeli company joined the project, a funding agreement was put in place under which it covered 100% of Rockhopper’s project costs prior to sanction, effectively reviving an asset that had been financially frozen for years. Phase 1 is expected to cost around $1.8 billion to first oil and roughly $2.1 billion through completion once contingencies and financing costs are included. In contrast to Leviathan, however, Sea Lion represents a deeper commitment: with a 65% stake and operatorship, Navitas appears positioned not only to carry the project through de-risking, but to remain at the centre of the development well into its producing life. The project has been facing a series of impediments, and only time will show if the owners will be able to navigate through them. Firstly, the legal framework underpinning Sea Lion project’s exploration and production is one of its most notable peculiarities. Following the UK’s de facto military victory in the 1982 Falklands War over Argentina as well as the 2013 referendum in which 99.8% of the Falkland Islands’ population voted to remain a British Overseas Territory, the islands are administered de facto and de jure under UK law, with sovereignty recognised in practice by most countries. At the same time, the United Nations does not recognise sovereignty claims by either the UK or Argentina, lists the Falklands as a non-self-governing territory and continues to call on the two nations to negotiate. That unresolved status creates enduring political risk but has not prevented the Falkland Islands Government from issuing licences, regulating petroleum activity, and levying fiscal terms. Under the local framework, Sea Lion is subject to a royalty rate of 9% and corporate income tax of 26%, in line with the Falklands Islands Upstream Summary. Ironically, the UK is strangling its domestic oil and gas industry with a 78% profit tax rate, but entertains such a lenient tax regime in its overseas territories. This way, politically, the project remains contentious. Buenos Aires has consistently opposed Sea Lion from the earliest exploration phase through to the FID announcement, describing the licences under which drilling and development are conducted as ‘unlawful’, branding the project ‘unilateral and illegitimate’, and citing the UN resolutions related to the sovereignty dispute. Argentina’s reaction to FID followed this well-established pattern. However, Buenos Aires has limited ability to intervene in the project from either a military or legal standpoint. Vessels en route to the Falklands do not need to pass through Argentine territorial waters, meaning Argentina's only recourse is to withhold logistical support, hoping that the difficulties of transporting necessary equipment and workforce from the UK to the Falklands via air or sea would make the project as financially unpleasant as it can be. The second major hurdle lay in a series of engineering and permitting bottlenecks that only began to clear this year. Located more than 220 kilometres offshore and entirely without supporting infrastructure, Sea Lion can only be developed via an FPSO – a solution that is both capital-intensive and constrained by limited vessel availability. However, early 2025 saw a long-anticipated breakthrough, when a front-end engineering design contract was awarded for a redeployed FPSO, marking a clear shift from conceptual work to execution planning. Environmental permitting, long a chronic obstacle, also moved forward. An Environmental Impact Assessment submitted in 2024 progressed through review, and in November 2025, the Falkland Islands’ Department of Mineral Resources concluded that the Environmental Impact Statement submitted by Navitas in July 2025 – the third version since the first proposal – satisfied local legislation and required only minor amendments. With engineering, permitting, and financing aligned, the case for an FID finally became robust. With regulatory sanction secured and an FID in place, attention is already turning to what Sea Lion could unlock next. The most obvious candidate is the Darwin deepwater gas-condensate discovery offshore the Falkland Islands, drilled by Borders & Southern Petroleum in 2021 in around 2,000 metres of water and estimated to contain 460 million barrels of recoverable liquids. Darwin has so far remained stranded by depth, cost and lack of infrastructure, but Sea Lion’s success could alter the economics of further developments in the basin. Argentina, meanwhile, has been testing its own offshore potential. Buenos Aires granted exploration permits to YPF, Equinor and TGS, and Equinor drilled the ultra-deepwater Argerich-1 pilot well, which was ultimately declared dry. For now, most upstream investment in Argentina continues to flow from the Vaca Muerta shale rather than frontier offshore plays. Sea Lion does not resolve the sovereignty dispute over the Falkland Islands, nor does it eliminate political risk in the South Atlantic. What it does demonstrate is that with the right capital structure, operator profile and timing, even projects long dismissed as commercially unviable can be brought to sanction. If the development performs as planned, Sea Lion may not only anchor Falklands offshore production for decades but also reshape investor perceptions of one of the industry’s last major frontier basins. By Natalia Katona for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Trump’s Truth Social Merges With Nuclear Fusion Company in $6 Billion Deal Chinese Solar Firms Trim Losses as Beijing Tackles Overcapacity Global Oil Demand Surges Driven by Indian Market Rebound

Brasilian Senate Approves Bill To Reduce Bolsonaro's Sentence

Brazilian Senate Approves Bill to Reduce Bolsonaro’s Prison Sentence Brazil Brazil’s Senate approved a bill this week that could significantly reduce prison sentences for those convicted in the Jan. 8, 2023, insurrection, a move that would directly benefit former President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been sentenced to decades in prison for attempting a coup, the Associated Press reported. The Senate passed the legislation with 48 votes in favor and 25 against after fast-tracking the bill through the Constitution and Justice Committee. The lower house had already approved the bill, which will now go to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for his signature. The new bill will allow sentence reductions of up to two-thirds for crimes committed “in a crowd,” benefiting defendants convicted of storming public buildings during the 2023 riots, provided they did not finance or lead the actions. It would also impact Bolsonaro’s prison term – he was sentenced last month to more than 27 years for attempting a coup following his election loss to Lula in October 2022. While there is no consensus on how much time the conservative leader will face if the bill takes effect, his allies in Congress suggested that the period could be cut to two years. Bolsonaro’s lawyers have already appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming the sentence was excessive and that the penalties should not be added because they stemmed from a single episode. Following the Senate’s vote, officials in Lula’s administration said the president will veto the measure, stressing that “those convicted of attacking democracy must pay for their crimes” and calling the bill a “sign of disrespect for the Supreme Court’s decision and a serious setback to legislation that protects democracy.” Observers noted that if the president vetoes the bill, Congress can attempt to override him with a simple majority in a joint session, according to MercoPress. The bill is also expected to face a Supreme Court challenge. On Sunday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Brazil to protest against the bill. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son, praised the proposal as the only path toward “national pacification,” adding there should be no debate about amnesty but about “annulling the farce that the entire process was.” He is expected to challenge Lula in the 2026 presidential election as the Liberal Party’s candidate.

Venezuela Rebukes Trump's Complete Blockade

Venezuela Rebukes Trump’s ‘Complete Blockade’ and Terrorist Designation Venezuela Venezuela denounced the United States’ decision to impose what President Donald Trump called a “total and complete blockade” of oil tankers as a violation of international law, a move that analysts called a major escalation with significant economic and humanitarian consequences for a country overwhelmingly dependent on oil exports, the Washington Post reported. On Tuesday, Trump announced the blockade on Truth Social, saying all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela would be barred. He also declared the administration of President Nicolás Maduro a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) and accused officials of using oil revenues to finance “drug terrorism.” In response, the Venezuelan government described Trump’s remarks as “grotesque” and a set of “warmongering threats,” vowing to raise the issue at the United Nations. The announcement follows a series of US actions targeting Venezuela in recent months: Since September, the US military has carried out airstrikes on small boats it says were involved in drug trafficking, killing at least 95 people. The United States has also increased its naval presence in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, including the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft-carrier strike group. Tensions escalated last week when US forces seized a previously sanctioned oil tanker after it left Venezuelan waters. On Tuesday, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council, calling the recent seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker an “act of state piracy.” Venezuela has accused Washington of seeking to seize control of the country’s natural resources. Meanwhile, Washington’s move would make Venezuela the first country ever to receive the FTO designation. Jeremy Paner, a former Treasury Department sanctions investigator, told the Post that this designation would extend US law extraterritorially, exposing any individual or company providing “any sort of assistance at all” to potential enforcement action. Meanwhile, legal analysts worried that the naval blockade could be deemed as an act of war, while also questioning how the wide-ranging blockade on sanctioned oil tankers would be enforced, the BBC added. They explained that roughly 80 percent of Venezuela’s oil is sold on the black market and that blocking sanctioned vessels could have a “massive impact” on government revenue. Because the country’s economy heavily relies on oil exports, the blockade could potentially lead to economic contraction, higher inflation, and currency devaluation. Others warned that cutting off oil revenue could sharply reduce food imports and trigger a severe humanitarian crisis. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but years of sanctions, mismanagement, and infrastructure decay have sharply reduced output, leaving China and US-licensed exports by Chevron as its main remaining customers. Share this story

Chile Elects Most Conservative President In Three Decades

Chile Elects Most Conservative President in Three Decades Chile Chile elected far-right José Antonio Kast as president Sunday, following an electoral campaign dominated by themes of security, immigration, and crime, in a victory marking the country’s sharpest rightward shift since the end of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship in 1990, the BBC reported. With almost all ballots counted, Kast, the leader of the Republican Party, won more than 58 percent of the vote in a runoff vote in which his opponent, Communist Party candidate Jeannette Jara, received just over 41 percent, NPR noted. Kast, considered a right-wing hardliner throughout his decades-long political career, was often seen as too extreme. He won over voters, analysts said, who have become increasingly worried about crime and immigration. While Chile is one of the safest countries in Latin America, violent crime has increased in recent years as organized crime groups have taken root, exploiting the country’s porous northern desert borders with coca-producing neighbors Peru and Bolivia. Kast has proposed building a border wall on Chile’s borders, deploying the military to crime-ridden areas, and mass deportations of illegal migrants in the country, many of whom are from Venezuela, according to France 24. The president-elect has also firmly opposed abortion in all cases and spoken against environmental protection policies. He proposed massive spending cuts and pledged a free-market approach to economics to shrink the state and deregulate certain industries, a stance likely to be welcomed by investors. However, his more radical ideas will likely face pushback from Congress. While right-wing parties gained seats in both legislative chambers in the general election in November, most of those gains came from more traditional parties. As a result, the Senate is evenly split between left- and right-wing parties, while the swing vote in the lower chamber rests with the populist People’s Party. The election, the first presidential election in the country since voting became mandatory, was also Kast’s third attempt at the presidency – the last time he lost to leftist President Gabriel Boric in 2021. He will be inaugurated on March 11. His victory is part of a recent regional trend in which voters are tilting right, for example, in Ecuador, El Salvador, Argentina, and Bolivia. Share this story

Brasil's Lower House Passes Bill To Lower Bolsonaro's Prison Sentence.

Brazil’s Lower House Passes Bill to Shorten Bolsonaro’s Coup Sentence Brazil Brazil’s lower house of Congress approved a bill Wednesday that could potentially reduce the prison sentence of former conservative President Jair Bolsonaro, who was recently sentenced to 27 years in jail for attempting a coup after losing the 2022 presidential elections, Reuters reported. The bill, passed in a 291-148 vote, would cut the sentence for individuals convicted of coup-related offenses. Lawmaker Paulinho da Força, who sponsored the bill, estimated the move would reduce Bolsonaro’s term by at least two years in prison. The proposed legislation would also shorten sentences for Bolsonaro’s allies convicted for coup-related charges, as well as for supporters prosecuted for storming the presidential palace, Supreme Court, and Congress in the capital, Brasilia, during the January 2023 riots. The vote was marked by a series of disruptions and scuffles among lawmakers, with one leftist legislator denouncing it as a “coup offensive,” the BBC added. Earlier drafts of the bill had proposed granting amnesty to those involved in the post-election protests, but da Força said he rejected such provisions. The bill will still need to be approved by the upper house, the Senate, and could be struck down by the Supreme Court. It comes three months after Bolsonaro was sentenced for plotting a coup after losing the election to his leftist rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Supreme Court found he had proposed a coup to military leaders and that he knew of a plot to assassinate Lula. Bolsonaro and his supporters have rejected the investigation as a “witch hunt.” Observers said Wednesday’s vote marks the latest effort by Bolsonaro’s allies in Congress to exonerate him, a topic that remains divisive in Brazil: In September, lawmakers loyal to Bolsonaro backed away from a bill that would have granted him amnesty following nationwide protests.

Tens Of Thousands Of Women In Brasil Protest Against Gender Violence

Tens of Thousands of Women Protest in Brazil Against Gender-Based Violence Brazil Tens of thousands of women took to the streets across Brazil on Sunday to protest against gender-based violence as a record number of female victims and several recent high-profile cases have shocked the country, the Associated Press reported. Women of all ages rallied in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and other cities, demanding an end to feminicide, rape, and misogyny, asking men to join them in their struggle. Some men also took part in the demonstration. Demonstrators in Rio de Janeiro set up dozens of black crosses and carried stickers reading messages such as “machismo kills.” In São Paulo, protesters chanted “Stop killing us” and held signs reading “Enough of femicide,” Al Jazeera added. Among the recent cases that ignited the demonstrations was the murder of an administrative worker in a school in Rio de Janeiro, killed on Nov. 28 by a male colleague. The victim’s sister, who was demonstrating in Copacabana, told the AP that the murderer did not accept having female bosses. Another incident took place on Nov. 28, where a 31-year-old woman was run over by her ex-boyfriend and trapped beneath the car, which dragged her along the concrete for about half a mile, resulting in the woman losing both her legs. Brazil passed a law criminalizing feminicide in 2015, describing the crime as the death of a woman in the domestic sphere or as a result of contempt for women. Last year, 1,492 women were victims of femicide, the highest number since the law was introduced, according to a report by the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, a think tank. The report also found that more than one in three women in Brazil experienced sexual or gender-based violence over the course of a year. Share this story