President Cristina Fernández said that YPF will be a “great challenge for Argentina” since it will have to turn into a modern competitive oil company in line with the interests of the country.
Even when the YPF nationalization bill in the Argentine Lower House was passed with support from most opposition parties, including the two main groupings the event was not without incidents.
The current managers of YPF accused Spain’s Repsol of deliberately delaying or ignoring contracts to supply Argentina with liquid natural gas, following the seizure of a majority stake in the company belonging to the Spanish corporation.
Rating Agency S&P announced on Thursday it was downgrading Spain-based energy company Repsol-YPF after Argentina’s government announced the expropriation of 51% of its shares. The rating was lowered from BBB to BBB (minus), the agency said in a statement.
Argentine Planning Minister Julio de Vido lashed out at Spanish Industry Minister José Manuel Soria by saying that oil company YPF is an Argentine corporation run by Spanish investors and should not be considered an asset of the European country.