The opposition promotes a project to create an “oil dollar” and improve the settlement of royalties

The national senator of Chubut, Ignacio Torres, presented a bill to improve the liquidation of the fees from hydrocarbon activities, with the aim of preventing the provinces producing hydrocarbons “continue to lose their own funds” in the face of the critical currency and currency situation that the country is going through.

The initiative of the senator of the Cambio Federal block has the support of the provinces that make up the Federal Organization of Hydrocarbon Producing States (OFEPHI), with the exception of the province of Buenos Aires: Tierra del Fuego, Santa Cruz, Chubut, Río Negro, Neuquén, Mendoza, La Pampa, Formosa, Salta and Jujuy.

According to the National Energy Secretariat, in January, February and March 2022, receipts reached 113.6 million dollars, with an average of almost 38 million dollars a month; while in the same period of last year the contribution was 86.7 million dollars, with an average of 29 million dollars per month. Thus it is concluded that this is an opportune and advantageous moment for the exploitation of oil.

However, as stated in the initiative presented by the Senator of Trelew, due to the difference between the official dollar and the dollar of the MEP, the hydrocarbon-producing provinces receive a much lower amount in royalties for the delivery of their resources.

Consequentially, Torres asks the national government to pay the compensatory amounts corresponding to the difference between the value of the official dollar and the MEP dollar to the hydrocarbon producing provinces.So that they do not sell their resources at lower than real values.

“Continuing with the regulation at the official exchange rate means losing the opportunity to increase reserves due to higher foreign exchange revenues, as well as increasing the collection through the collection of royalties from the provinces,” specifies the bill.

In this sense, he specifies: “The funds that the provinces receive as royalties are mainly used in infrastructural works, in the payment of the salaries of teachers, doctors, police officers and teachers, among others. With the modification that we have come to propose with this project, we would go to safeguard the provincial coffers so that they can meet these expenses which, with the current inflation, have considerably increased. Although the official dollar – which is taken to pay royalties – does not undergo strong increases, the changes that the financial dollar and the blue dollar undergo affect the expenses that the provincial administrations have to face ”.