armed insurgency has since subsided. 
Landlocked Bolivia made a big stride in meeting its gas hub goals in 1999 
with the opening of the Bolivia-to-Brazil pipeline, with the capacity to send 
1 billion cubic feet per day into Latin America's biggest gas market. It 
competes with Argentina for the Brazilian, Peruvian, and Chilean markets, 
even as it eyes ways of entering the Argentine market itself. "Argentina sees 
Bolivia as both a competitor and a potential partner," says an analyst who 
spends a lot of time in Argentina. "It is hard to know how much spillover 
there will be from high unemployment, inflation, and general instability into 
the Bolivian gas industry." 
Several foreign companies have bet on Bolivia's gas play, notably the UK's 
BG, which has just been awardedbought brokerage house TCT in a bid to drive traffic 
through its internet exchange. A strategic alliance between RedMeteor and 
trading house Vitol has also failed to provide the expected liquidity boost. 
Vitol is not an active user of the US platform, sources say. It is most 
active in the New York cargo market, where RedMeteor has yet to establish 
itself. RedMeteor also has a deal with Neftebid, a Russian trading 
consortium. It has licensed its trading software to the group, with an online 
exchange to be launched this quarter. 
Two other start-ups, Pepex and Oilspace, have their eyes set on the cargo 
market. As of mid-March, Pepex had handled tenders for 12 million bbl - 
roughly two-thirds products and the rest crude - since its launch last