Your Petroleum, Ms Fernández HAVING been an exporter of hydrocarbons not long ago, Argentina now imports natural gas from Bolivia and oil from Venezuela—even though it is sitting on what is probably one of the world’s biggest shale oil-and-gas fields, Vaca Muerta in Patagonia. When President Cristina Fernández last year ordered the expropriation of Repsol’s controlling stake in YPF, the country’s main oil company, she saw this as a way of ensuring Vaca Muerta would be developed by Argentines, not Spaniards. But the nationalisation placed YPF at the centre of an international legal dispute.This left Miguel Galuccio, YPF’s new CEO, running a company with little chance of raising the capital it needs if it is to develop its slice of more than a third of Vaca Muerta’s acreage. And it is one of several problems making it hard for Argentina to cut an energy deficit that according to Miguel Kiguel, an economist, is heading for $7 billion this year. That deficit is a big reason behind a plunge in the Central Bank’s reserves to a seven-year low.All this explains why the government this week offered Repsol compensation, reportedly of $5...
via The Economist: The Americas http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21590939-deal-repsol-small-step-towards-reversing-energy-deficit-swallowed-pride?fsrc=rss|ame
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