In a new twist to the policy of subordination to the Anglo-Yankee Zionist imperialist axis of the Javier Milei government, "the Anglo-Dutch Shell will be the one to develop the new gas liquefaction plant from Vaca Muerta, which will definitely be built in Punta Colorada, Rio Negro," reported the MDZ news portal.
The project was announced in The Hague, Netherlands, by YPF and Shell . Announcing it in London would have been too shocking, although the admirer of Margaret Thatcher would not have had much trouble. The announcement marked the definitive exit of Petronas , the Malaysian state oil company, which had brought up the idea of building the plant in Argentina. It also confirmed that the plant would be located in the province of Río Negro.
YPF, in a press release, said that YPF President and CEO Horacio Marín and Shell Executive Vice President of LNG Cederic Cremers signed the final commitment agreement for the development of the project.
The statement highlights that: “The PDA (Project Development Agreement) implies that Shell will join the project. The parties have committed to advance the development of the first phase of the Argentina LNG project until the decision is made to enter the FEED (Front-End Engineering and Design) stage. This first phase implies a liquefaction capacity of 10 million tons per year (MTPA).”
Furthermore, it confirms the departure of the Malaysians, as it reports that: “With the entry of Shell into the development of the first phase of ARG LNG, Petronas’ participation as a partner of YPF ends. Both will continue working on the development of the La Amarga Chica area in Vaca Muerta. YPF recognizes the valuable contribution of Petronas during the last two years, sharing with the YPF teams its technical and commercial experience in the LNG market. The joint work has contributed to the development of the ARG LNG Project up to its current stage and will allow new steps to be taken.”
For his part, Horacio Marín said: “We are proud that Shell, a world leader in LNG production, is joining the project. As a pioneer in the LNG market, Shell's knowledge and experience will be fundamental in helping to position Argentina as a reliable and competitive global energy supplier.”
In July 2024, The vice president of the Central Bank, Vladimir Werning , made several presentations to investors in New York and on August 27, 2024 in Washington in front of the American Council, in which he detailed that they were awaiting the arrival of projects worth between 30,000 and 54,300 million dollars in the energy sector, in the next two years (which will take between 20 and 30 years to execute), after the implementation of Law 27,742, which includes the RIGI (Regime of Incentives for Large Investments).
In his regular column in El Cohete a la Luna, economist Horacio Rovelli shows that these announcements made by Werning were the initial kick-off in the planning of the looting by the oil lobby, since: “The government announced in the penultimate week of December 2024 that it will launch, from January 2025, the exchange benefits of Decree 929/2013, which implies a relaxation of the restrictions for companies that invest in Vaca Muerta, so that companies in the oil sector can export 20% of their production (and not pay withholdings on that total) and keep the foreign currency generated by those exports abroad” .
Furthermore, Rovelli adds that: “In that penultimate week of 2024, the Ministry of Economy (the implementing authority of the RIGI) announced the entry of a second YPF project [1] into said regime that includes the construction of an oil pipeline to connect Vaca Muerta with the port that will be built (in said project) in Punta Colorada, in the San Matías Gulf of the province of Río Negro, which they assure will allow doubling oil exports.”
The total investment for the construction of the pipeline amounts to 2.5 billion dollars, says Rovelli , and will be carried out by YPF in collaboration with companies with a majority of foreign capital: Vista, Oil & Gas (in which Miguel Galuccio owns 7.617% of the shares, but the majority is listed on the New York Stock Exchange); PAE (Pan American Energy, where 60% belongs to British Petroleum and 40% to the Bulgheroni family); Pampa Energía (where the Mindlins own the management of the company, but 75.5% of the shares are listed in New York and the participation of BlackRock and Joseph Lewis is obvious as directors appointed to the company); Chevron (where BlackRock and Vanguard are major shareholders), and Shell (a traditional Anglo-Dutch company that in recent years, in exchange for financing, sold part of its shares to BlackRock (2.135% of the share capital), Vanguard (3.84% of the shares) and Norges Bank Investment Management (2.972% of the shares).
One fact to keep in mind is that the English millionaire, Joe Lewis , acquired 8.7% of the share package of the Pampa Energía group, an operation that was carried out on August 12, 2019 at a time when the prices of local companies listed in New York plummeted when Mauricio Macri's government was reeling as a result of the results of the PASO.
The Economist reported that: “The purchase of the tycoon’s shares reported by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was achieved through negotiations between the companies Braslyn Ltd and Hidden Lake, based in Buenos Aires,” since “between both companies linked to Lewis they bought 8.7% of Pampa Energía, the company chaired by Marcelo Mindlin, of which Hidden Lake controls 4.2% of the shares, and the other 4.5% through Braslyn Ltd, according to public documentation from the SEC.”
From Agenda Malvinas , at the beginning of August, we reported that the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant would be built in the province of Río Negro, in the Punta Colorada area, a town in Sierra Grande, where the enhancement and modernization of an old, disused port with access to the Argentine Sea would also be carried out and that the total investment in the project was 30 billion dollars and would be carried out, in stages, over the course of a decade.
At that time we also said that “this is just the ticket for Anglo-Saxon imperialism since the new LNG plant that YPF will build with the state oil company of Malaysia, a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations, is located in the Sierra Grande area, just 22 kilometers from the field linked to the magnate and subject of the British crown, Joe Lewis, through the manager of some of his companies, Nicolás Van Ditmar, including Bahía Dorada and Hidden Lake.”
The same field where the almost two-kilometer-long landing strip is located.
But reality always has bigger surprises in store for us, as the situation is more serious than we thought, since now the company associated with YPF to carry out this huge plunder, through RIGI, will be the emblematic British hydrocarbon company, originally from the Netherlands.
More subordination and surrender to British invasive colonialism is not possible. But what can you expect from a president who declares himself an admirer of Margaret Thatcher .
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