Page 13 - LatAmOil Week 23 2022

LatAmOil ARGENTINA LatAmOil

Argentina’s fuel shortages keep spreading

ARGENTINA has reportedly been experienc- Liquefied Gas Companies (CEGLA). In Chaco,
ing more shortages of refined fuels this week, Corrientes, Formosa and Misiones provinces,
with supply disruptions spreading beyond the efforts to distribute LPG cylinders have been
northern part of the country and beyond the adversely affected by lack of gas supplies.
diesel market. “The most complicated area to supply is the
As NewsBase noted last week, many parts of north. Fuel is not available on the roads, and lor-
northern Argentina were reporting shortages of ries [are] not able to complete the distribution
diesel fuel as of late May. Shortfalls began aris- with the containers they are transporting,” said
ing in mid-May and were acute enough by the CEGLA president Pedro Cascales.
end of the month that Oscar Herrera Ahuad, the LPG supplies have been slow to arrive in
governor of Misiones Province, said at a formal the northern provinces, so whatever volumes
gathering of the governors of 10 northern prov- of fuel are still available are being sold at high
inces on May 27 that the situation might have a prices, Cascales added. He stressed, though, that
negative impact on the annual yerba mate har- CEGLA, whose member companies supply fuel
vest. (Diesel is used to fuel most of the tractors, to 40% of Argentina’s population, was commit-
agricultural equipment and trucks involved in ted to delivering LPG to buyers in the northern
harvesting operations.) part of the country.
By last weekend, however, supply problems “We offer an affordable and safe product. We
had spread far beyond northern Argentina urgently need the supply of diesel oil to be reg-
and into most regions of the country. Accord- ularised throughout the territory,” Mercopress
ing to Mercopress, as of June 5, every region of quoted him as saying. ™
the country except for Patagonia was reporting
shortages of diesel.
The news service listed the most affected
provinces as the Autonomous City of Buenos
Aires, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Corrientes,
Entre Ríos, Formosa, Jujuy, Mendoza, Misiones,
Salta, San Juan, Santa Fe, Santiago del Estero and
Tucumán. It also said that Catamarca, Chaco,
La Rioja and San Luis provinces were suffering
“complications” and noted that La Pampa Prov-
ince was not allowing drivers to fill their tanks
with more than 51-100 litres of diesel at a time.
Mercopress further noted that Argentina
was experiencing some shortages of LPG. The
problem is especially acute in the north-eastern
regions of the country that are not connected to
the natural gas pipeline network, it said, citing
information from the Argentine Chamber of Diesel shortages have been reported in nearly every province (Photo: Mercopress)

GLOBAL
OPEC+ speeds up production uptick

OPEC and its partners in the OPEC+ group thereby unwinding the remainder of the 10mn
agreed last week to add more oil to the market bpd that has been withheld from the market
as concerns about the future of the deal persist. since April 2020.
On June 2, the group announced that it Meanwhile, ministers also agreed to give
would “advance the planned overall production countries that have previously been guilty of
adjustment for the month of September and over-producing their quotas until December to
redistribute equally the 432,000 barrel per day compensate for their overproduction.
[bpd] production increase over the months of Meanwhile, the OPEC+ collaboration has
July and August 2022”. been extended from September until the end of
In doing so, OPEC+ production quotas will the year, giving them time to decide on the sub-
rise by 648,000 bpd in both July and August, sequent plan of action. ™

Week 23 09•June•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P13