Page 7 - LatAmOil Week 46 2019

LatAmOil ARGENTINA LatAmOil
 As the top bidder, Petrobras won the right to buy 2.1tn British thermal units (about 41,500 tonnes) of LNG that had already been loaded onto a tanker at the Tango LNG facility.
The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Reuters noted, though, that YPF had finished transferring the LNG from Tango to Excalibur, an LNG tanker operated by Exceler- ate Energy, on October 26. Shipping data from Refinitiv show that the ship is now on the move, the news agency said.
YPF indicated earlier last week that the cargo would be exported to a customer somewhere in the Atlantic Basin on a delivered-ex-ship (DES) basis. At the time, Reuters quoted an unnamed trade source as saying that the LNG was prob- ably headed for Europe or the Americas rather than a long-haul destination.
The trade source also noted that Tango LNG took about 40 days to load each full cargo. He went on to say that Tango LNG’s next shipment would be loaded onto Methane Kari Elin, a tanker owned by Gaslog LNG Services (Greece).
Argentina exported its first LNG cargo in June of this year, several months after taking
delivery of a floating LNG (FLNG) unit from Exmar (Belgium). The vessel is processing gas from Vaca Muerta, a shale formation that con- tains substantial reserves of crude oil and nat- ural gas.
Tango LNG, which can turn out 500,000 tonnes per year (tpy) of LNG, is currently Argentina’s only gas liquefaction plant. YPF has said it wants to build another facility with a capacity of 5mn tpy.™
`
The Excalibur is carrying Tango’s first commercial LNG cargo (Photo: VesselFinder)
VENEZUELA
Venezuelan opposition set to retain control of Citgo following US court decision
VENEZUELA’S political opposition has report- edly scored a victory in its fight to retain con- trol over Citgo, a US-based subsidiary of the national oil company (NOC), PdVSA.
Opposition leaders, including Interim Pres- ident Juan Guaido, staked their claim to Citgo by filing suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. In the initial fil- ing, they petitioned the court to nullify a PdVSA bond issue that is due to reach maturity in 2020.
The NOC was due to make a payment of $913mn to bondholders on October 28 or run the risk of seeing creditors seize its collateral for the securities issue – namely, a 50.1% stake in Citgo.
Guaido and his allies sought to forestall such a takeover, as they were keen to secure control over Citgo and its assets and cash flow. (They also knew they did not have the money needed to make the $913bn payment on time.
They have had some help from the US Treas- ury Department. On October 24, that agency introduced a measure blocking the transfer of equity shares in Citgo until January 22, 2020.
The measure now looks set to remain in effect after that date. Reuters reported that Judge Katherine Folk Failla had set a schedule for lit- igation that will keep the court case going well beyond January 22.
According to the news agency, she said that
the discovery period would continue until Feb- ruary 10, followed by the recording of expert depositions before a hearing on May 5.
The schedule, which is recorded in a docu- ment known as a forbearance agreement, will give the Venezuelan opposition more time to try consolidating its control over Citgo. Accord- ing to Reuters’ source, Guaido and his team have already begun negotiating with bondholders in the hope of striking a comprehensive agreement that will settle the matter.
As of press time, neither PdVSA, Citgo not Guaido had commented on the latest decision by the courts. ™
Citgo shares are the collateral for a PdVSA bond issue (Photo: Citgo)
Week 46 21•November•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P7