Page 12 - LatAmOil Week 40 2021

LatAmOil ARGENTINA LatAmOil

Tenaris has a strong interest in seeing Argentina infrastructure.
push forward with hydrocarbon development. “We will need large investments in infra-
The company is a producer of steel pipe for use structure, in pipelines, in plants,” he said.
in energy projects, and it is also affiliated with Without these things, Rooney remarked,
Pluspetrol, a privately-owned Argentinian Argentina will have a difficult time proceeding
company. with development work at fields in the Vaca
Even so, Pluspetrol and Tenaris are not the Muerta shale formation. By the same token,
only companies assessing Argentina’s need for though, Shell’s interest in Vaca Muerta projects
materials that can be used in infrastructure will rise if new export facilities are built to han-
projects. dle future gas flows from the shale formation,
Sean Rooney, the head of Royal Dutch he said.
Shell’s operations in Argentina, said at the sum- “When the export business is developed in
mit on October 5 that investors ought to sup- Argentina, Shell will certainly be part of this,” he
port efforts to strengthen the country’s energy added. ™

PERU
Castillo reorganises Cabinet shortly after

PM urges higher taxes for gas investors

QUESTIONS have arisen about the fate of the as much as 11 trillion cubic feet (312bn cubic
Camisea fields, Peru’s largest domestic source of metres) of gas, came on stream in August 2004.
natural gas, following a shake-up in the admin- They are assigned to a six-member consor-
istration of President Pedro Castillo, the leftist tium led by Argentinian oil firm Pluspetrol.
and former teacher who took office in July of The group’s other shareholders include South
this year. Korea’s SK Group, US-based Hunt Oil and
On October 6, Castillo dismissed Prime Spain’s Repsol.
Minister Guido Bellido, in a move that forced Bellido had said in August that the govern-
all other members of the cabinet to resign. He ment intended to participate more in strategic
then announced the replacement of six cabinet sectors of the economy, including oil and gas,
ministers – including Energy and Mines Min- and also that it planned to create new state-
ister Ivan Merino, whose post has now been owned companies. He was speaking around the
assigned to Eduardo Gonzalez, an engineer same time that Merino told Argus Media in an
with expertise in hydropower. Gonzalez is the interview that the Castillo administration’s goal
fifth person to serve as head of the Energy and was to make the national oil company (NOC)
Mines Ministry since July. PetroPerú stronger and more efficient. ™
Bellido’s replacement, meanwhile, is Mirtha
Vasquez, a former Parliament speaker who is an
environmental lawyer and a member of a Marx-
ist political party.
Vasquez took office less than two weeks after
her predecessor indicated that Lima would
give investors in natural gas projects a choice
between paying higher taxes or submitting to
government control. In comments posted on
Twitter, Bellido took aim at the companies that
are developing the Camisea fields, which are
Peru’s main domestic source of gas.
“We summon the Camisea gas operating and
trading company to renegotiate the distribution
of profits in favour of the State,” he wrote. “Oth-
erwise, we will opt for the recovery or nationali-
sation of our field.”
As of press time, neither the president nor
Vasquez had said whether they intended to
uphold Bellido’s statements about higher taxes
or nationalisation.
The Camisea fields, which may contain Peru’s new Prime Minister Mirtha Vasquez (Photo: Twitter/@MirtyVas)

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 40 08•October•2021