The President will present at the closing panel of the event, which will be held at the Neuquén Industrial Park, together with the head of the UIA, Daniel Funes from Riojaand the governor of Neuquén, Omar Gutierrez. Previously, the first activity of the day will be the panel “Vaca Muerta and the Argentine energy and industrial transformation”, where representatives of YPF, Pan American Energy and Tecpetrol will participate. The most important companies in the oil and gas value chain will be present, informed the UIA.
The choice to hold the Industry Day in Neuquén, kilometers from the Vaca Muerta deposits, was not by chance. With the energy transition as the central agenda for the medium and long term in the world, and with the urgent energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, the UIA will seek to highlight the role that Argentina could play at a global level in terms of energy provision.
It was precisely this year energy imports that discalibrated the trade balance and led to import restriction measures, one of the main complaints that industrialists have with the Government today. “The dollars that were spent on LNG are the ones that are missing to produce”, told a source.
Although in the UIA they assure that there was a good management so that there was no lack of energy in winter, that translated into strong losses of reserves, and they do not rule out a devaluation scenario if certain conditions are not met, such as starting to accumulate reserves, either via slowdown in activity, liquidation of agriculture, or new international credits, analyzed from the UIA.
Nowadays, Vaca Muerta produces 39% of the country’s total oil and 38% of natural gas. But UIA estimates ensure that, if its resources were fully developed, it could produce 300 million m3 per day: Argentina needs half for its self-sufficiency, so the rest could be exported to Bolivia, Chile and Brazil, and to other markets through LNG.
The cost of energy from Vaca Muerta is around $3.5, when the global energy crisis is far from over and futures are trading at $80. So from the UIA they observe that the impact of cheap energy will impact lower spending for residential consumption, and therefore better real wages and, in addition, lower spending for industries. That is, greater competitiveness in the manufacturing sector. The impact on the trade balance is due to foreign exchange savings, but also the generation of dollars from exports.
The scenario on the importance of Vaca Muerta is shared by businessmen and the Government. Nevertheless, From the UIA they want to warn about the need to advance in new measures so that the sector can develop more quickly, as the world moves towards an energy transition that will last a few decades, in which large amounts of gas will be required, but less and less oil.
For this reason, the businessmen will not only ask for the gas pipeline to continue advancing, which they discount will be ready for the winter of 2023, but for measures that are “State policies”. Orders will go through free access to foreign currency, stability in withholdings, predictability in prices, lines of credit and tax incentives. In addition, from the UIA they will ask that the development of local suppliers not be left aside, given that the hydrocarbon sector is the one that drives the most. Only in the last year there were different projects between the former ministers, Martín Guzmán and Matías Kulfas, different bills in Congress and finally a DNU that has not yet been applied.
Source: Ambito
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