Bolivian state oil company YPFB annulled a $2.2 billion contract for a polypropylene plant, the government said Wednesday.
YPFB will call another public tender "in the next few months," Energy Minister Luis Sanchez said in a statement. Italy's Tecnimont and Spain's Tecnicas Reunidas won the contract in May to build a plant in the gas-rich Tarija region.
"Administrative errors were found during a revision of the report," Sanchez said in the statement. "Between the contract award and signing, it's common to annul a contract. That means we'll draft a new contract. We'll need to take some time."
Tecnimont and Tecnicas did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
The contract had been widely criticized by analysts as Tecnimont had previously been awarded the project's conceptual study in 2012 and a contract for detailed engineering in March.
The contract was annulled days after the government appointed Oscar Barriga to replace CEO Guillermo Acha, under investigation for an allegedly fraudulent $149 million acquisition of three drills from Italy's Drillmec last year. President Evo Morales said Barriga will review all of YPFB's tenders and implement austerity measures.
YPFB, which had planned to invest $692 million in exploration this year, has signed exploration and production contracts with YPF, Repsol, Gazprom and Petrobras over the past year, part of a drive to invest $12.7 billion in hydrocarbons projects over the next five years.
Bolivia -- where Morales has seized oil and gas fields and refineries from companies including Repsol, Petrobras and BG since first taking office in 2006 -- saw oil and gas exports drop 46.8% to $2.12 billion in 2016 from a year earlier.
Bolivia produced 60 million cu m/d of natural gas and 41,587 b/d of crude oil through the end of 2016, according to the country's National Hydrocarbons Agency. YPFB aims to boost the country's natural gas output to 77.4 million cu m/d by 2020.
