Weighing Bolivia's gas export options

Legal disputes and competition from Chile complicate efforts to become a regional energy hub

Bolivian president Evo Morales is in a race against time to achieve his cherished goal of exporting pipeline natural gas to Peru before he seeks a mandate from voters next year for an unprecedented fourth term. But the odds aren't in his favour. Chile continues to block Bolivia's ambitions to run a pipeline through its territory, with the dispute remaining mired in the World Court. The polls are turning against the president, who has virtually gambled the country's economic future on transforming land-locked Bolivia into a regional hydrocarbon hub. Morales has instead turned to an alternative strategy. Bolivia and Peru have floated the concept of a transcontinental rail link that would conne