MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

French oil demands $1 billion compensation from Argentina.

French oil giant Total is demanding a billion US dollars compensation from Argentina before a World Bank investment protection arbitration tribunal arguing that the 2002 freeze of hydrocarbons prices and derivates, plus the devaluation of the Argentine currency has caused massive losses to the company.

Company spokesman Jacques Chambert-Loir said that Total's Argentine affiliates were particularly struck in January 2002 when the Argentine government, appealing to Emergency Bill 25.561, interrupted the fixed parity of the peso with the US dollar that helped to maintain monetary stability for over a decade.

Besides for the last 22 months all public utility rates have been frozen by the Argentine government.

Total during the last decade invested heavily in Argentina diversifying in midstream gas operations and energy distribution, and now holds 19.2% of Transportadora de Gas del Norte; a 56.5% in GasAndes, which owns a pipeline running between Argentina y Chile, and 32.7% in Transportadora de Gas del Mercosur, carrying Argentine gas to southern Brazil

The French oil company also became Argentina's second-largest producer of electricity, 3.565 MW, equivalent to 15% of the country's national grid and concentrated in metropolitan Buenos Aires and the south.

In association with PanAmerican Energy and Wintershall, Total is managing two offshore platforms for natural gas extraction in the Carina and Aires basins. Investment in the two platforms is estimated in over 400 million US dollars.