Pablo González, president of the YPF.
If it were just a skit, as some analysts think, we should praise the effort made by the protagonists of the work and recognize that they are getting better and better. No secrets, we are talking about Cristina Kirchner and Alberto Fernández in the order that appears on the billboard.
The problem would be that it’s not a parody but of what it really is, a continuous version of the battle for power, for the management of economic decisions and state resources, deployed in full view of the world and marked by suspicions of corruption. Furthermore, all very expensive.
History repeating itself shows Cristina always in attack and Alberto who delivers officer after officer harassing the vice president. The last to fall was the Minister of Productive Development, Matias Kulfa; for further information, declared enemy of Cristina and personal friend of Alberto.
In fact, surprisingly or less obviously, that conflict takes place on terrain that is conducive to construction rather than destruction. Takes the background of a energy crisis costing the country billions of dollars a year and which advances relentlessly, even if for some time an exit known as “the blessing of Vaca Muerta”.
It would be more appropriate to say a known exit half exploited, for the lack of a pipeline to transport the unconventional oil and gas that abound there. And perhaps it would be much more appropriate to speak of an alternative stopped by the movement, to say the least, of not leaving a similar problem solved for those who succeed Nestor-Christianity.
Some samples of the magnitude of what is in sight say that Vaca Muerta’s unconventional natural gas, in the so-called Neuquén Basin, it already represents 35.2% of all national production. And that the volume extracted in April was 71.7% higher than in April last year.
For oil, the same rumors say 38.7% of national production and a 55% increase in April 2022 compared to April 2021.
It is enough to go back to the records of the end of 2019 to notice the violent growth that, in less than three years, have seen the exploitation of hydrocarbons in Vaca Muerta and the potential of Vaca Muerta.
At that time, the production of gas known as shale gas represented 23% of the total and oil or shale oil 17%. Translated, the contrast with respect to 2022 sings a leap of almost 16 percentage points in one case and about 12 in the other.
More or less the same or similar, the Neuquén Basin is the only one of the five existing in the country where annual oil and gas production grows simultaneously. The rest has been left behind or far behind and the difference lies in the development of unconventional variants.
It expires from maturity, then, wondering why with so much background and so much wealth available Alberto and Cristina or, if you prefer, Cristina and Alberto did not start pipeline construction they just speculated. Above, in the case of a work that bears the Néstor Kirchner brand on the selvedge.
It is true that the winter of that year already seemed lost, no matter how hard the accelerator was pressed. But pushing the project as needed, there was plenty of time to face the cold of 2021 without major hot flashes with electricity and natural gas and, in addition, save a couple of dollars in times of low bookings.
Finally, it happened that in the absence of the pipeline, the energy bill recorded imports of 5,500 million dollars in the last year, of which 2,057 million in diesel and 1,200 million in liquefied natural gas (LNG, according to the acronym in English). . ).
A datum of that 2021 that seen from today sounds like an opportunity, is that the international price of oil, which puts a number on diesel, has fluctuated around 100 dollars a barrel. Another: one million BTUs, the UK measure used for liquefied natural gas, costs just over $ 8. In photography, let’s say quite moderate.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a conflict that, although savage, continues for longer than expected, the landscape has changed completely and has obviously changed for the worse. So, between oil now moving around $ 160 and LNG at 40 or above 40, the winter of 2022 already looks very dark if not very expensive. Big hustle and bustle, for BCRA officials who keep scratching the bottom of the plate.
According to some necessarily mobile private estimates, energy imports would be staggering this year $ 12.8 billion, or 130% in dollars compared to 2021.
For now, from January to April the bill already says $ 3.040 million or 195% more than the same period last year. And not everything is a price effect, it should be clarified, since quantities flow at a speed similar to that of costs: as much as 73% in both cases.
Notoriously, purchases of liquefied natural gas and diesel fuel prevail, which together would represent almost 70% of energy imports. In other words, what has become violently more expensive and has caught the officials allegedly responsible for the problem off guard.
Transformed into a strong part of the plant, the ever-expensive LNG here began to become famous and to make noise with ships arriving in large numbers during Cristina Kirchner’s second presidential term. Now, private sources calculate it in 2021 56 ships arrived and this year there would have been 60, which would involve an estimated cost of approximately 6,000 million dollars.
Dollars on dollars everywhere and always with a negative sign, the INDEC statistics reveal in the first four months 1,600 US dollars for the purchase of diesel.
Notable work for Energy Ministry officials, imports soar and supply sometimes hits unprecedented records but the shortage of diesel already reigns in almost the whole country. Incidentally, YPF came up with the idea of raising prices at the borders when sales increased by up to 60% in some places: late, too late.
And since we’re talking about money, How much does the blessed Vaca Muerta pipeline cost? Official information says 1,500 million dollars for the first section, which reaches Salliqueló, in the province of Buenos Aires. There is no data on the latter, which advances south of Santa Fe, but the number of dollars the country is losing is very clear from the contrasts.
Nothing new and nothing to extort expectations, specialists have completely ruled out the possibility that we will have a gas pipeline in the winter of 2023. “Not in 2024 or maybe not in 2025” say some of them.
Still incomplete, or very incomplete, the table explains in several ways why the economy goes from bang to bang, adjustment from one end to the other, always on the verge of hot flashes, like the contras known today and, up to moreover, ruled by bad governance. It’s not all Kirchnerism’s fault, of course, but they’ve been in power for two years and six months and they’re not exactly triumphant.
Latest data: energy subsidies totaled $ 538 billion between January and May49% more than in 2021. Therefore, and translated into dollars, the account is on track to close the year at $ 14,000 million according to industry experts.
Alcadio Ona
Source: Clarin
