MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“K” economist claims holdout hedge funds are after Argentina’s shale resources

Economist Agustín D’Atellis bashed ‘vulture funds’

The holdout speculative funds or “vulture funds” are going after Argentina’s resource-rich Vaca Muerta region and are seeking to threaten the government with a “technical default” scenario, economist Agustín D’Atellis.

The statement comes when President Cristina Fernández is in Brazil trying to rally support from the BRICS summit for Argentina in its legal dispute against holdout creditors.

Member of the Gran Makro organization, shaped up by so called “heterodox” economists that defend the Argentine government’s economic agenda-, D’Atellis questioned an article written by Bernard Weinstein in which the economist who is part of the US Republican Party and a lecturer for the American Task Force Argentina (ATFA) group says a default scenario would take Argentina to miss investments for development projects in Vaca Muerta, a 1,000-foot-thick shale oil and gas field in the southern region of Patagonia.

“This (piece) is published in a time when Argentina takes part in a BRICS meeting, meaning (in a time) when it is in a context where neoliberal interests really fear the possibility of us getting support and even financing (for Vaca Muerta),” Agustín D’Atellis said on Wednesday adding vulture funds - in the voice of Bernard Weinstein or the ATFA-, seek to present an “apocalyptic scenario to make business.”

“Both the vulture funds and this economist (Bernard Weinstein) talk out loud about the importance of deregulating energy markets,” he said explaining the Vaca Muerta region in the southern province of Neuquén accounts for Argentina’s sovereignty in energy areas and exporting prospects.

“Overall, Weinstein’s opinion admits directly that vulture funds’ intention is to not negotiate but to keep our natural resources and continue to speculate,” the Gran Makro economist warned.