MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina pays Paraguay part of the US $ 45 million of overdue Yacyretá energy

EBY payments are neither regular nor monthly

Argentina Friday paid Paraguay US $ 19 million for overdue Yacyretá energy, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, head of Paraguay's side within Yacyretá's Binational Entity (EBY) announced.

Of the US $ 100 million Argentina owed, it had agreed to pay US $ 44 million this year. Friday's US $ 19-million disbursement was along those lines, Duarte explained.

In fact, Argentina wired over some US $ 19,735,172, totaling US $ 45,759,943 in 2021. With these payments, Argentina has honored what it had pledged to pay this year.

The EBY also said the entire proceedings had been transferred over to the Finance Ministry. Last year, the EBY had requested the Paraguayan Foreign Ministry to negotiate with the Argentine government, which resulted in these payments.

Duarte -a former Paraguayan President between 2003 and 2008- insisted there were over US $ 100 million in debt, of which US $ 44 million were to be paid this year, but Argentine ended up paying a sum above it and that the remaining part of the debt is to be canceled throughout 2022.

Argentina had made the first payment in September worth US $ 15 million, Duarte Frutos had announced after a meeting with Foreign Minister Euclides Acevedo and President Mario Abdo Benítez.

According to official data on power generation from the Yacyretá Power Plant, the total power supplied by the hydroelectric plant in November was 1,195,404.4 MWh. The figure is 15.86% lower than that of October, in which 1,420,757.3 MWh was delivered. The energy is supplied to the Paraguayan National Interconnected System (SINP) of Paraguay, and to the Argentine Interconnection System (SADI), of Argentina. Yacyretá detailed that 157,076.7 MWh corresponded to ANDE, and to IEASA 1,038,327.7 MWh.

Unlike Itaipú, where payments are regular and monthly, disbursements throughout EBY are not quite so due to the lack of definition of the revision of Annex C of Yacyretá, which is pending approval by the Argentine Congress.