Respsol warns its peers with legal actions if they team up with nationalized YPF
Spain-based energy group Repsol has sent letters to oil majors including Exxon-Mobil, Chevron and Conoco-Phillips warning it would sue them if they try to invest in YPF or its assets, reports the British newspaper The Financial Times.
According to the newspaper, whose staff had access to the documents, the letters were sent on Monday emphasizing that “Repsol would take actions and/or legal proceedings necessary to protect our investment … to prevent any improper interference or unfair competition by third parties seeking to take advantage of the current circumstances to directly or indirectly acquire interests in YPF assets in which we have an interest”.
It said it could also sue companies which “profit at the expense [of Repsol]” or take any steps “prejudicing Repsol’s ability to fully defend and recover its rights”.
The letters allegedly conclude saying “We [Repsol] are confident that we will count on your understanding and support.”
After the Argentine government expropriated the country’s biggest company by seizing a 51% control, which left Respol with a 6.4% stake, Repsol has called the nationalisation “unconstitutional, discriminatory and unlawful”.
President Cristina Fernández appointed Miguel Galuccio as new YPF chief until shareholders meet on June 4 to elect a new board.
The Argentine government needs deep-pocketed partners to help YPF develop Vaca Muerta, which is considered the world’s third largest shale reserves – oil and gas trapped deep in the earth’s bedrock that require costly, high-tech drilling to extract.
Planning Minister Julio De Vido, and Economy Deputy Minister Axel Kicillof, who were put in charge of YPF by decree on April 16, has already sounded out Total of France, Petrobras of Brazil and US companies Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, Exxon-Mobil and Apache Corp about partnering YPF, but there have been no announcements.
Repsol said earlier this year it had discovered 1.5 billion barrels in contingent reserves it expected could be extracted – in Vaca Muerta, of which 1.2 billion would be attributable to YPF. Of that, 116 million were classified as reserves, meaning the investment decision to develop them had been taken. In all, it said Vaca Muerta had total prospective reserves of more than 21 billion barrels.
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Argentina took land from its neighbours in numberous wars , civil wars and land grabs - Paraguay, Uraguay, Chile. Today Argentina despite the changed political landscape is still a nation characterised by uber nationalism. The claim to the Falklands was surendered in 1850 but reserected in 1941 by a fascist junta, which inc Peron, they thought their friends the Nazi were going to win the war, the Falklands looked easy picking.
In 1982 Argentina was under the latest succession of a series of fascism military junta's. Their hold on power was looking precarious, in deperation they sort a war, Chile looked like a good victim, they already claimed lots of land and were ignoring the international tribunals that had ruled in Chile's favor. But then they changed their mind and invaded the Falklands. Today the war is romanticized by a nation ruled by a kind of cross between a Neo-Nazi uber nationalist and a Charvesta Revolutionary uber Marxist. The only thing missing is the land reform. Maybe that's for later? But as few natives remain, maybe they'll just ignore their rights... God knows they always have. An entire culture replaced by a European one. Entire languages destroyed.
Timmerman should take time to read about his country's history.
Arg will be stymied and will only be able to move internally which is almost impossible because they are desperate for U$. Arg doesn't have the refining capacity to supply the country and have a tight rope balancing act of imports and exports of oil. So they will send some oil to say Brazil, and there is will stay without payment until a court decides who owns it. eventually no one will want it because they don't have the storage capacity...then what...
This should be fun to watch.
Are you on cheap American street crack this morning?? THE OIL ITSELF IS NOT SPANISH!! Even the most nazi argie-haters here said at the time of the confiscation (correctly), that the oil itself (the resource), was never Spanish, it was simply being commercialized by a firm headquatered in Spain.
Good luck getting a court (and which courts btw, the only courts that count within Argentina are argentine, tough luck), even considering touching the issue of natural ownership of resources... hahahaha. You are fantastically hallucinatory aren't you.
Yet more displays of Argentinian hypocracy, or is it schizophrenia? Repsol is entirely within its rights to write in these terms to other oil companies, given that the expropriation of the repsol holding in YPF was discriminatory (the argentinian friends of kirchner did not have their shares expropriated) and thus in breach of the BIT between Spain and Argentina. On the other hand, the letters written by the Argentinian government to oil companies and banks making empty threats in relation to falkland oil drilling are not justified because Argentina has no jurisdiction over the Falklands. Any independent court worth the name will understand the difference.
In the end all Repsol and the suppliers have to do is get 1 or 2 courts to take the tankers, keep them in port until it is worked out. The daily shipping cost will eat up the carry price of the oil. Then no ships will take it because they can't unload and can't get insurance.
Wait and see...
@9 You are out of your mind. What you are saying is Argentina has no jurisdiction over the Falklands (correct), but that Spain, Britain, EU/US have jurisdiction over Argentina. This deffinitively proves what I have been saying all along, you are nothing but arrogant, despicable, and execrable excuses for human beings. One day you will pay for all this, but sadly it will likely be your children and grand-children who will die for your sheer insolence.
You are an argie-hater end of story. Repsol has a right to preclude other companies from taking over their assets, whatever is above ground mainly or whatever is used to extract the oil. The oil itself does not belong to YPF, as yankeeboy lies lies and lies as usual. He is a poor dog end of story.
No court will even take a case such as this, that determines to whom a natural resources in existence way before any contracts signed, belongs to. EVEN if they did take a case, any non-argie court has no jurisdiction they are irrelevant. But even if they were given jurisdiction... NO COURT WILL EVER MAKE A RULING BETWEEN TWO QUARRELING PARTIES (repsol vs Argentine gov), THAT HARMS A THIRD PARTY.
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER.
Since oil is needed by other industries in Argentina that have nothing to do at all with the dispute, and certainly needed by drivers, no court will ever make any ruling that even remotely puts 3rd uninvolved parties as the ones to hold the bag for damages.
Sorry, tough luck again.
So once it leaves the country it can and will be confiscated.
And you are lying about the refinineries. I live within 30 km of one of the largest refineries in the region. Most of the gasoline is refined within country.
Most of your exports go to Chile and USA for refining both countries will abide by court rulings and confiscation orders.
ARG is going to be sitting on a lot of oil it can't sell or use.
Notice how yankeeboy NEVER provides sources. And he must think we all suffer from bad short-term memory like him, because his excuse is “I read it in LaNacion/Clarin/fill in the blank”, but I can't remember now. Go find it.
That's been his excuse like a dozen time.
“Here comes the wolf, here comes the wolf”.... hahaha
“The only courts that count within Argentina are argentine”.
Do you even think before you post you cretin. You have threatened to sue the companies that drill for oil in the Falklands you dumb fucker in international courts but as you have unwittingly acknowledged it will get fucking nowhere because no one outside of Argentina gives two fucks about what you think.
Imbecile.
The strikes in 2010 and 2011 will seem insignificant by comparison.
Oh, joy!
@8 OK. Here's a fun, and fair, idea. Why don't you let Repsol put the oil back where they got it from? And fill in the holes with gelignite?
@11 You poor sap. If Repsol puts the oil back where it came from and “removes” the hole, can you drill for it? Can you remove oil that is not burning because of the gelignite used to close the drill holes? Can you transport it to a refining facility? Can you refine it into useable commodities? Can you do it in the next 3 or 4 years? How little you understand!
@13 Always a good idea to make it clear that argie courts don't apply law, they apply government directives. How will you get on in an international court? Bear in mind that this will be a case between an argie (government-seized) company and a Spanish company. So you clowns will have to appear in an international tribunal. Watch out for how the world feels about your dictatorism, your nazism, your tyranny.
Argturdland is finished. It is dead. It still walks. It still talks. A walking, talking, retarded, zombie corpse. Treading the road to oblivion. Perhaps the final act in the destruction of Spain as a credible “race”.
yesterday, she still demands talks on gibralter, like argentina, she to never learns,
soory mates, britain should not help spain,
just my thought .
No you moron, I pointed out that the argentinian action against Repsol is illegal under international law (the BIT between Argentina and Spain). And an ICSID arbitration court DOES have jurisdiction over this - that's just the way things are. Let me make it very easy for you: its a FACT that an ICSID arbitration court has jurisdiction over something done by your government. Just like its a FACT that Argentina has no jurisdiction over the Falklands.
Argentina hater? Well, yes, I am coming round to that view - I really don't have much time for morons who post things like “One day you will pay for all this, but sadly it will likely be your children and grand-children who will die for your sheer insolence”. Comments like this go a long way towards persuading me that your shitty little country is just a complete waste of space.
not us,, but you your selves .
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