Economy Minister Sergio Massa has promised Wall Street analysts investments and legal certainty. He was in a conference call appearance at a YPF event celebrating the 30th anniversary of its public listing. “Over the next 20 years, gas and oil must transform Argentina as agriculture has done,” the minister said.

In particular, the official ratified the submission of a liquefied natural gas production bill and talks with Petronás, the Malaysian oil company, for a joint development agreement for a long-term project for the production, distribution and export of LNG .

“In the first phase we aim to produce 5 million tons of LNG -said the minister- and we are working on a bill that provides for the free availability of foreign currency to give legal certainty to companies developing projects in this sector”.

In this way, the minister referred to an initiative that he had hinted at at the end of 2022 and which he tried to bring to extraordinary sessions of Congress over the summers without success.

Massa, whose presence was scheduled for this Friday in New York, admitted that I could not travel due to negotiations with the IMF. “We are at the end of the goals for the fourth quarter,” he justified his stay in Buenos Aires at the beginning of his speech. Argentina expects a disbursement of about $5.4 billion from the IMF by the end of the month and is negotiating an easing of its quarterly and annual targets for 2023.

Before Massa, YPF executives had referred to the LNG project “We hope that the state will send the framework law to promote the production of liquefied natural gas in the coming weeks,” said Pablo González, president of the company.

“We’re still in the technical and economic analysis part,” YPF CFO Alejandro Lew said more cautiously when asked by a Bank of America analyst. “Maybe we need funding from multilateral organizations.”

Massa spoke to a packed hall on the 6th floor of the New York Stock Exchange at an event celebrating the 30th anniversary of the company’s listing. Outside, on the facade of the building at 18 Broad Street, the flags of the United States, Argentina and the YPF flew. “Unlocking Argentina’s Energy Potential,” read a kind of giant parade with the YPF logo hung on the building’s facade.

The event will close with the company authorities in the traditional ceremony that closes the tour by ringing the bell and taking the photo.

There was the presence of politicians such as the Argentine ambassador to the United States Roberto Arguello y Raimundi, Argentine ambassador to the OAS, a critic of multilateralism and the United States.

Among the market analysts were Argentine and foreign representatives of the banks Barclays, JP Morgan, Citi, Bank of America, UBS and Morgan Stanley.