Uruguay and Brazil agreed this week to jointly set up a 100MW wind farm in Uruguayan territory demanding an investment of 200 million dollars and which should become operational by 2013.
Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff following a meeting with an Argentine delegation from the energy sector ratified her country’s decision to “strengthen the investment and the presence of the oil company, Petrobras, in Argentina”.
Argentine President Cristina Fernández minimized Spain’s decision to reduce the bio-diesel imports as a retaliation over the expropriation of YPF and called for “calm” after assuring that Argentina “is in condition to absorb” that production in the domestic market.
Argentina managed a first point in the diplomatic dispute with Spain over the nationalization of YPF when the IMF decided to call the conflict a “bilateral affair” and “a decision of a sovereign nation”.
Petrobras and mining company Vale, the two biggest companies in Brazil, have signed a memorandum of understanding to pursue joint ventures in various areas, Petrobras said.
The government of President Cristina Fernandez is “not concerned” about the escalade of international criticism following the announced nationalization of the oil company YPF, and rules “thinking in Argentina not in Spain or the US”, said two cabinet members.
Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos welcomed Spanish corporations and guaranteed his visiting Spanish peer Mariano Rajoy that in Colombia there will be no surprises because the country follows the rules of the game: “President Rajoy: here we don’t expropriate”.
Spain will discuss a joint response with the United States to Argentina‘s forced nationalization of the YPF oil company, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said on Thursday.
Argentina's government said on Thursday that it had agreed with France's Total to work together to boost natural gas output by 2 million cubic metres per day at two Patagonian fields where YPF – which is being nationalized – also has a stake.
Argentina's move to nationalize local oil company YPF, controlled by Spain's Repsol, was strongly criticized by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé.