At two minutes past midnight on Friday – 180 days since Bolivia’s government decreed the state was to take back control of its natural gas reserves – President Evo Morales hopes to announce the nationalisation has been completed.

It is far from clear that the deadline will be met. Things have not gone smoothly since May 1, when Mr Morales donned a hard hat and entered the San Alberto gas field in south-eastern Bolivia operated by Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned energy company, to declare that he was honouring a campaign pledge to renationalise the sector.