YPF and PDVSA will explore Malvinas continental shelf for oil, says Pagina 12
According to reports in the Argentine media, the nationalized Argentine oil company YPF, formerly owned by Spain's Repsol, will be teaming up with Venezuelan oil giant PDVSA to explore the continental shelf around the Falkland/Malvinas Islands for oil.
“We discussed the need for oil and gas exploration in the territory and offshore areas, adjacent to the Malvinas, but we have to analyze the costs and time,” PDVSA president Rafael Ramirez Carreño told Argentine newspaper Pagina 12. He said he had recently spoken with the president of YPF, Miguel Galuccio, on this issue.
Ramirez Carreño said the prospective investments are the result of joint-ventures in Venezuela between the two countries.
However, he added that Venezuela is “proceeding with caution” after a warning by Repsol to companies that partner with YPF after the expropriation of its shares earlier this year. The Spanish company said it reserved the right to take legal action against any investor in YPF or its assets that had been illegally expropriated from Repsol.
Argentina announced in April it was taking control of YPF, seizing a 51% stake from Repsol, a decision supported by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
This is the latest in a series of moves by the current Argentinean President, Cristina Fernandez, to escalate tension over the Falklands on the 30th anniversary of the war fought by the UK and Argentina over the Islands in 1982.
In the face of a campaign of harassment against British interests in Argentina, the UK government tabled a White Paper in June officially pledging to defend the Falklands and declared there would be “no weakening” in the country's resolve over the Falklands.
In one of the latest incidents Britain summoned Argentina's ambassador to London on December 3 after masked men ransacked the offices of a shipping company in Buenos Aires, a move the Foreign Office alleged was aimed at deterring ships from visiting the Falklands. A number of cruise ships have cancelled planned visits to the Falklands under pressure from Argentina.
In April, Argentina sent a letter to 15 UK and US banks warning them of possible civil and criminal charges if they continue work with the five London-listed oil exploration companies involved in drilling in Falklands territorial waters.
The largest company involved, Rockhopper Exploration, sold a 60% stake of its Sea Lion field to Premier Oil in July in return for a 1 billion dollars investment to bring the field into production in 2017. The prospect contains an estimated 320 million barrels of oil.
Noble Energy, a Texas based exploration and production group, is buying interests in licences held by Falklands Oil and Gas off the Falklands’ northern and southern coasts. Over the next three years Noble estimates it will be investing between 180m-230m dollars to develop its interests.
Suggested Stories
-
May 21st 2013
Falkland Islands: it’s a three-side debate; Argentina must recognize Islanders right to decide their future
-
May 16th 2013
Chevron agrees to invest 1.5bn dollars in developing YPF shale field in Patagonia
-
May 21st 2013
Falklands: optimism about identification of the unknown Argentine soldiers
-
May 21st 2013
Falklands MPA has the minimum force necessary to prevent a repeat of 1982 invasion
46 comments Feed
Note: Comments do not reflect MercoPress’ opinions. They are the personal view of our users. We wish to keep this as open and unregulated as possible. However, rude or foul language, discriminative comments (based on ethnicity, religion, gender, nationality, sexual orientation or the sort), spamming or any other offensive or inappropriate behaviour will not be tolerated. Please report any inadequate posts to the editor. Comments must be in English. Thank you.
fortunately Argentina couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery, so i don't see this happening any time soon.
As long as Repsol is sitting in the wings I don't see anyone touching YPF with a bargepole.
IF YPF manage to co-ordinate efforts and IF they get within the designated waters of the Falklands, something they seem to think is acceptable, then the gloves could come off legally and severe physical retribution could be achieved on both parties.
No-one of any consequence is going to intervene on behalf of either country: it’s about oil.
I have to state however that I personally do not think anything will come of this, even Venezuela ‘is proceeding with caution’. I bet they are.
and after your chum Chavez has popped his clogs and the 'free' venezuelen oil stops arrive in RGland the lights will be going off all over.
I see they have already gone off in much of BA.
Sorry Simon and and all the other good RGs.... no gain without pain...
I wish you all a very good KFC free Año Nuevo
There is an EEZ around the Falkland Islands that extends for at least 200 nautical miles beyond the Falkland's territorial waters and contiguous zone. A total of 224 miles from the low water mark at every point on the Islands. Stay out! Intrusion is a “casus belli”.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone
td-architects.eu/admin/uploads/files/0a206695df114a069545b19791516aa2.090811_EEZ.jpg.jpg
I have seen countries go to war of both these comodities and rest assured Argentina will make the mistake of dragging her Latin Americican friends into this area again. She will I believe take a back seat because that is what Argentina is very good at. Working people and Countries up into a frenzy then pleading they had nothing to do with it. Just like the billions of dollars they have defaulted on. Not their fault they say.
I have a message for you Argentina and that is let's start 2013 with a differance . Total peace in the region Let the Falkland Islanders go about their lives and you let your fellow contry men and women go about theirs in a peacful and prosperous way. Have a happy new year everyone.
While TMBOA, Correa, Morales, can't count Dead Man Not Walking, and the other leftie/commies running the countries of SA the UK WILL always be considered the bad guys.
Now come on, don't sit on the fence, come out and say just what you want to!
LOLs :o)
The United Nations still recognizes the rights of the Falkland Islands and would not condone any intrusion by Argentina or Venezuela in Falkland Islands Territorial Waters.
These exploration rigs have considerable dollar value. Even Chavez is not stupid enough to risk losing a considerable asset by stationing it , but if he is, the FIG will happily confiscate it and then use it to assist the exploration by properly accredited firms operating with a license from the Falkland Islands Government.
Whilst confiscating an exploration rig sounds great, there would be the problem of title.
The rig would not be the property of either Venezuela or the YPF prats, who haven't got a barrel to piss in.
The commandos could of course always shoot a few armed rig guards: just as a sign of faith you understand (the 'faith' being that they REALLY do mean business). That would stop any exploration in its tracks, never to be restarted.
It's not an illegal occupation. The junta decided to belligerently attack the islands, while suffering an embarrassing loss, because they sent kids with very little experience because they were cowards. We mourn for those that lost their lives, but really the islands don't matter. Besides, if you lose, you don't have the right to whine about it later. That's just plain pathetic.
Do keep up Prat-Hunter - try looking up “Esperanza”, “Marambio”, “Belgrano” and “San Martin” - all Argentinean Antarctic bases.
I'm guessing he means some kind of armed forces base, he is just skipping down the high street of his imagination, window shopping and vocalising his thoughts, its quite sad really.
You forgot to mention those pesky brits “rapping” muslim women lol
Erm....From all the discussions about boarding oil rigs i think a few(most) have misunderstood the story.
These people aren't planning on putting an oil rig in the islands EEZ. That would be stupid. They are planning on putting an oil rig in what they call the “Malvinas basin” IE the area between the islands and Argentina, outside of our EEZ. Totally legal.
And fair plan to them wish them all of the luck in the world might get them to stop moaning so much(although this is highly unlikely)
Still back in the real world it would be a exceedingly bad idea for a oil rig to enter Falkland waters since all international support will be in the favour of the people of the Falkland Islands and the UK's military could respond in any way it deems fit, i.e. capturing the rigs/ships or destroying them if they deemed that maybe the best course of action.
“This is the pirate munter that lives in Canada what a halfwit
Slattzzz, ”half-wit“ does not begin to describe him, LOL.
PH is the only one on here stupid enough to open his original account under his own name,” ALEX VARGAS”.
Not even Sussie is that dumb. :-)
If you check out his FB site, he gives the impression he's 12 years old.
Fooled me at first, but his picture and his stories of his family fleeing the junta in the 80's, leads me to believe he's at least in his early 30's.
He states he does not “believe in credit cards” lives off the grid etc.
According to his blog on FB, he says his family knows he is “not big on Christmas”.
His Alma Mater in Toronto is a ghetto high school, known for immigrant poverty, single moms, violence etc. Social housing there is called “ The Jungle”.
A very angry twisted young man in Canada.
Still, better than Salta, where he says he lives.
He probably spent Christmas pulling wings off flies or torturing kittens.
Getti g lots of attention here, he would be unnoticed by the other La Campora loonies.
That is exactly as I understand the story. The fold-belt extends underneath the Islands along the North Scotia Ridge in the Malvinas Basin. This is Argentine territory (stolen from the Patagonian Indians during Argentine colonial (genocidal) expansionism).
They can drill it whenever they like.
The reference to the Islands is irrelevant. It's a bit pathetic really.
The story has been fed to them in a manner which suggests that the drilling is to take place 'adjacent' to the Falkland Islands, rather than 'adjacent' to the Patagonian coast. The inference is quite clear.
The Malvinas Basin could equally mean the sea outside the Falklands EEZ as inside it. If they meant the area outside the Falklands EEZ, then they could have worded it to say exploring the area adjacent to Patagonia, but they didn't.
Indeed they specified:
“explore the continental shelf around the Falkland/Malvinas Islands for oil”
and
“We discussed the need for oil and gas exploration in the territory and offshore areas, adjacent to the Malvinas”
If Argentina intends to drill in their own waters, they are entitled to and no one would complain. If on the other hand, the exploration rigs are to be sited within the Falklands EEZ, then this would be a provocation which would have unfortunate consequences for Caracas and Buenos Aires.
Despite what some have said, even if the rig was hired from a third party and not owned by Venezuela or Argentina, it would still be subject to confiscation by FIG for illegal operation in the Falklands EEZ.
Falklands Island government would have final say on the fate of any confiscated property.
re: Bill for occupation of the Falkland Islands (there are no Malvinas) - indeed, and I'm sure the UK would pay an awful lot more notice if Argentina were to pay back the £45 million that they still owe the UK for ARA Hercules and ARA Santsima Trinidad.
re: Renaming bits of Antarctica - I'll just say Isla 25 de Mayo (known to pretty much everyone else as King George Island) and leave it as that.
“Falklands Island government would have final say on the fate of any confiscated property.”
This may be so, but if title to the property of whatever nature is not vested in the protagonists then it would be immensely foolish not to return it to the rightful owners for two reasons:
1) if it is a rig it will belong to a company which may already be in the Falklands (there are STILL no Malvinas you prats) or be important to developing the future;
2) it makes the FIG no better than AG if they knowingly keep it.
We are discussing hypotheticals here.
No rig has been sited as yet and therefore the fate of any illegal operation would be a hurdle that FIG has to jump when they come to it. We maybe getting ahead of ourselves, but the reason we did was the statement within the report.
The Argentine Government is prone to making inflammatory statements designed to provoke an antagonistic reaction. That appears to be the case with the article.
Mercopress wrote the article based on the information they received and the operative words were 'adjacent' to the Islands.
If they intended to drill within their own waters and we accept that the rigs would be closer to the Patagonian coast than the Islands, then the rigs would be adjacent to the coast rather than adjacent to the Islands.
The AR is desperate to exploit the resources around the Falklands, even if they cannot get sovereignty. They maybe stupid enough to think that this would give them the right to explore within the Falklands EEZ and make the British appear to be the aggressor with any response.
It appears that they are being deliberately provocative with the intention of stirring a dispute. By involving Venezuela, they are hoping that this will become a 'South American' issue with all of South America behind Argentina. However, I doubt that this will be the result.
If the rig is owned by a third party, they would want reassurances that the rig was not placed in any conflict or confrontation zone. So there is no way that any of the present participants on the Islands would agree to allow their rig to be used as a pawn in the dispute, especially if this jeopardised their licenses to explore from FIG.
All this talk of exploration maybe just day dreams by Buenos Aires and Caracas. Let's wait until we hear more.
.“ Argentina should start sending a monthly bill to UK a”
Why? It is Argentina that owes the UK money.
If there is one thing that is guaranteed to crystalise American support for the Falklands, it would be Chavez stirring up trouble where American companies are legally drilling for oil.
Why should we talk to Argentina?
There is nothing to talk about.
Oh you mean that we should surrender our sovereignty to them, did you?
Thats laughable!
Maybe they want to surrender their sovereignty to us.
That makes more sense.
You know, l don't believe that we'd take it.
Who wants the nightmare of trying to govern Argentina.
There is no need to attack Argentina, they are doing a very good job of destroying themselves. lol
“Great move by Cristina's Argentina,”
Not really, there aren't any Argentine rigs out there yet, like CFK's great announcement that oil producers around the Falklands would be taken to court.
CFK said that in March. It is now January.
Nothing has happened.
Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!