Brazil's state-owned oil and gas giant Petrobras on Wednesday announced a reduction of 30 percent in the price to transfer two refineries it owns in Bolivia.

According to Jose Fernando de Freitas, Petrobras' president in Bolivia, the company offered to sell the two plants to the Bolivian government for 112 million U.S. dollars, down from the initial estimate of 160 million dollars.

The "final offer" was presented on Wednesday morning in La Paz, where Brazilian government officials held a meeting with executives of Bolivia's national oil and gas company YPFB.

Freitas said that the deadline, which was established by Petrobras' CEO Jose Sergio Gabrielli, for the other party to decide on the proposal will expire on Thursday. Whether negotiations continue or not will depend on the response from the Bolivian government, he added.

On Sunday, Bolivian President Evo Morales issued a decree stating for the nationalization of all oil and gas exports. Petrobras' refineries are two of the six largest in the country.

Gabrielli and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, along with the ministries of Mining and Energy and of Foreign Relations, reacted to the decree by saying that it meant the expropriation of the plants' cash flow.

Petrobras acquired the plants in the provinces of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de La Sierra in the 1990s.

Source: Xinhua