Protesters attack the headquarters of the Transredes natural gas pipeline company, subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, during a demonstration to demand more royalties from the sale of gas from the Margarita natural gas field run by Spain's Repsol-YPF, in Yacuiba, southeastern Bolivia, yesterday. At least one protester died battling police for control of the pipeline control station, as the conflict stemming from a dispute between two provinces claiming to be home to the field, continued with no immediate solution. - Reuters

VILLAMONTES, Bolivia (AP):

President Evo Morales has sent troops to guard key southern gas installations after violent protests erupted in a struggle between rival provinces for control of a valuable natural gas field, leaving one person dead and 20injured.

Two neighbouring provinces in Bolivia's gas-rich south are locked in a dispute over the Margarita field, still in its exploration and development stage, but potentially one of Bolivia's largest.

The field in Tarijas state straddles the poorly-defined boundary between the provinces of O'Connor and Gran Chaco, with each fighting for a larger share of the field's eventual royalties.

"I can't understand why two provinces in the same state would be fighting constantly," President Evo Morales said yesterday, after returning home from a South American energy summit in Venezuela. "I ask our brothers and sisters in the region to quit fighting over internal problems or money and pacify the area."

Soldiers kept guard yesterday over a pumping station in the southern border city of Yacuiba, seat of Gran Chaco province, protecting a pipeline run by Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary Transredes that delivers most of the five million cubic metres of gas Bolivia sells daily to Argentina.