MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentina to raise oil export price to 63 dollars per barrel from the current 42
Energy Secretary Daniel Cameron is behind the initiative says La Nacion Argentina’s Energy Secretary Daniel Cameron will propose that oil prices for export be raised to 63 dollars per barrel from the current 42 dollars, the Argentine newspaper La Nacion reported Sunday on its website.
The proposal was ready two weeks ago, La Nacion said, without saying how it obtained the information.
A decade-long freeze on oil prices, which set the maximum producers could charge for exports at 42 dollars per barrel, has hindered investment in the oil and gas industry Argentina while imports have soared.
Production dropped to 35.3 million cubic meters in 2010 from 45.4 million in 2001, according to data published by the Buenos Aires-based Argentina Oil and Gas Institute.
The Argentine government blames the oil companies for the fall in production and is currently clashing with the largest of them YPF, demanding they make long term investment responding to Argentina’s interests and “not to short term financial profits”.
It has also encouraged, as part of its strategy, to have oil provinces cancel YPF oil and gas concessions unless they present strong viable investment plans that will increase production.
Argentine fuel imports more than doubled in 2011 from a year earlier to 9.4 billion dollars, contributing to the narrowing of the country’s trade surplus to a one-year low of 280 million dollars in December.
Blocked from international credit markets since a 2001 default on 95 billion dollars of sovereign bonds, the government of President Cristina Fernandez depends on its trade surplus to bring dollars into the economy and build central bank reserves.
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Read all commentsThe message oil companies will get from this is “we demand you come to our country and invest billions of dollars so that you can sell us the oil at a price lower than it has cost you to extract - and count yourself lucky for this generous offer”
Mar 26th, 2012 - 08:45 am 0Tempting!
@1 Can I do it? Can I? Can I? *Belly Laughs*
Mar 26th, 2012 - 08:48 am 0Not a hope in hell of getting anyone other than the freaks and the uniques to invest in their nonsense given their current behaviour.
#1 Apologies if I don't feel quite so sorry for the poor oil companies, after all the poverty and destruction they've caused around the world, especially in the Middle East (the arguments above were the same ones used against PM Mossadeq of Iran, justifying a coup in 1953 against secular progressive nationalism that led to both the Shah and the Islamic Republic). I'm glad my Queen has given them the only choice they deserve - pay a proper price for the privilege of getting your hands on our oil, or get out. Viva Cristina! Ti amo mi reina, besos =)
Mar 26th, 2012 - 09:20 am 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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