This morning, after publishing an investigation that exposes how transnational corporations continue to redraw the map of oil plunder in the South Atlantic, we discovered that, on the stock exchanges of Tel Aviv, Toronto and the City of London ; a veritable corporate cartel is consolidating itself that is going for all the hydrocarbon resources of the North Malvinas Basin , under illegal British control.

To understand the magnitude of this new attack on national sovereignty, it is essential to focus on the trajectory of the Canadian company JHI Associates Inc. – and its recent acquisition by Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas Ltd. And especially on the enormous volume of crude oil they intend to extract from the Argentine continental shelf, in blatant violation of Argentine law, through illegitimate licenses granted by the colonial government in the Malvina Islands.

JHI's arrival in the Malvinas: The "vehicle" for capturing licenses

JHI Associates Inc. is not a conventional oil company with platforms, ships, or direct operational capacity . It is afrontier exploration firm, founded in 2014 in Toronto, Canada, whose business model consists of acting as a "shell company" or prospecting vehicle: it acquires licenses in areas of high geological value, finances 3D seismic surveys, identifies drilling prospects, and then transfers or sells control of those areas to large multinational corporations in exchange for guaranteed financing or equity stakes.  

Although Agenda Malvinas has only recently become aware of it, JHI 's incursion into Argentine territorial waters was completed in 2023 , when the company acquired 100% of the operating rights to license PL001 , which belonged to the British company Argos Resources . This illegal concession covers 1,126 square kilometers in the North Malvinas Basin and strategically surrounds the main Sea Lion field.

However, as JHI lacked the financial backing to drill on its own, on February 27, 2026, it entered into a crucial agreement with the Israeli company Navitas Petroleum . Through this agreement, Navitas also acquired 65% operational control of the PL001 block , committing to finance JHI 's future exploratory drilling with a loan of up to USD 14 million . In return, any production discovered in PL001 will not require a new platform: it will be remotely connected via tie-back technology (underwater pipelines and umbilicals) directly to the factory ship (FPSO) that Navitas will deploy in Sea Lion.

The sale to Eco Atlantic: The triangulation of capital between Canada, Israel and the USA.

The investigation we released this morning revealed the next step in this corporate concentration operation: on May 18, 2026, JHI received final approval from its shareholders and the Canadian courts to be acquired in its entirety by the multinational Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas Ltd.

This transaction intertwines the financial interests of the major global powers and exposes the network of capital operating in the South Atlantic:

The figures of the looting: Oil volume in the spotlight

The volume of hydrocarbon resources that this corporate network intends to extract from the Argentine continental shelf reaches astronomical dimensions, transforming the basin into a world-class extractive hub - as they themselves declare:

1.  Sea Lion Field (Operated by Navitas and Rockhopper): Holds an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of original oil in the field (STOIIP) , with projected immediate recoverable reserves of more than 520 million barrels in its first two phases of development.

2.  License PL001 (Controlled by Navitas, Eco Atlantic and JHI): Technical information disclosed by the company itself indicates that its team of geoscientists has identified in more than 50 surveys (3D seismic data), a recoverable resource potential of 3.1 billion barrels and a total potential in the formation that could exceed 10 billion barrels of oil .

3.  Immediate prospects ( Tyche and Dinlas ): Within the PL001 area, the two most advanced prospects have an estimated potential of 400 million barrels of recoverable crude oil , belonging to the same geological complex and of the same age as the adjacent Sea Lion field.  

In total, corporations estimate that the North Malvinas Basin holds an exploitable volume that easily exceeds 3.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil, between the main area and the adjacent annexed blocks.

An urgent challenge to national sovereignty

Further investigations reveal that transnational corporations are operating with the certainty of total political and legal impunity. The connections between Navitas, Rockhopper, JHI, and Eco Atlantic demonstrate that financial capital from Israel, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom has formed a unified cartel to plunder the resources of the Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica, and South Atlantic Islands province.

While these companies systematically violate the Hydrocarbons Protection Law 26.659, the Customs Code, environmental regulations , and plan massive extraction using factory ships starting in 2028, the response from Argentine authorities, and especially those in Tierra del Fuego, remains paralyzed by media condemnation and press release rhetoric from the Milei-era Foreign Ministry and the co-opted administration of Governor Gustavo Melella .