South American Gas Union
Gas and oil can represent for South America what coal and steel meant for the European Union: the basis for an integration that goes beyond commercial and economic issues.

Venezuela´s inclusion in the South Common Market (MERCOSUR) this week provided new significant openings for the bloc, implying more structured cooperation.

As the first of such steps forward, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela committed in Montevideo to building an up to 6.2-thousand mile gas pipeline, which will pave the way for a South American gas interconnection.

The project, expected to begin in 2006, is opened to other South American nations, in the framework of Petrosur, part of the Venezuelan strategy of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).

The ALBA project puts forward integration based on cooperation and complementation, as opposed to the US-encouraged Free Trade Area of the Americas that is based on neoliberalism.