The Minister of Economy and presidential candidate of Union for the Fatherland, Sergio Massa, announced on Wednesday a investment of $900 million for the construction of the gas network from the town of yearn, capital of Dead cow. “We are repairing an absurdity”he said, while celebrating the inauguration of the Néstor Kirchner gas pipelinea work “that changes the Argentine energy matrix”.
Accompanied by the Governor of Neuquen, Omar Gutierrez, and the elected president of said province, Rolando Figueroa, carried out the signing of the investment agreements in natural gas for the town of yearn, considered as the gateway to the second unconventional hydrocarbon reservoir biggest in the world.
“We are repairing an absurdity”began by saying Massa regarding the reality lived by the inhabitants of the city of Neuquén -where Vaca Muerta workers usually live-, who currently do not have network gas despite being on one of the largest reserves in the world.
“Añelo is somehow, for the whole world and for Argentines, the capital of Vaca Muerta in symbolic terms. It is the home of those who work there. And in the Argentine gas capital there was no network gas for the inhabitants”said the minister when announcing the agreement between the Nation, Neuquén and the local government to start the connection works to the gas network.
With an investment of $900 million, the work will allow “do an act of justice in terms of service and infrastructure” for the citizens of Añelo and thus show “the idea that Vaca Muerta belongs to all Argentines and that in some way it is the distribution of a super important resource for Argentina.”
that the neighbors of yearn and the workers of Vaca Muerta have network gas “makes common sense,” added Massa, and continued: “We healed a wound so that the workers of Vaca Muerta, in addition to generating gas for the Argentines, can heat themselves to have energy when carrying out their domestic chores after a day’s work“.
In addition, he did not hesitate to question the delay in carrying out the connection. “It is a work that the National State should have done a long time ago”he said, in an underhanded criticism of the different governments that preceded that of the Frente de Todos, and even of former Minister Martín Guzmán and his Productive Development counterpart, Matías Kulfas, on whom the delay in the construction of the gas pipeline also weighs, a work that It will finally open this Sunday.
“On Sunday we are inaugurating a work that changes the energy matrix of Argentina in some way because it is not only Argentine gas for Argentine homes, it is Argentine gas for the Argentine north that we have been importing from Bolivia. Also for the industry at much more competitive prices. And it is a change for the better in the economic balance,” said Massa.
The Néstor Kirchner Gas Pipeline began construction in 2022, after years of delays by the government of Mauricio Macri and of his own Alberto Fernandez. The start-up was one of the first measures that Massa took upon assuming the Ministry of Economy.
After ten months, and in record time, this Sunday, July 9, as part of the day of the independence of the Argentine Republic, and together with the Head of State Alberto Fernandez and the vice Cristina Kirchner, its inauguration will take place.
hydroelectric power stations
During the day, Massa and the Secretary of Energy, Flavia Royon, received Gutiérrez and Figueroa together with the current and elected governors of Río Negro, Arabela Carreras and Alberto Weretilneck, to form a working group between the Nation and the provinces with the objective to define a roadmap regarding the transfer of the hydroelectric power stations to carry out a new investment process for the Argentine energy sector.
During the meeting at the Palacio de Hacienda, the Minister of Economy assured: “We have made the decision to set up a work team with the provinces, the Treasury Attorney, the State Prosecutors of the provinces, the Ministry of Economy and the Secretariat of Energy for the purposes of establishing a new stage that allows guaranteeing the rights that have to do with the use of water, with the generation of energy and that aims to guarantee fair prices for energy in Neuquén and Río Negro and for the generation of the national electrical system.
In that sense, Massa also called to “convoke the private sector” to “guarantee a new investment process that allows us to improve the infrastructure of the Argentine electrical system.”
In turn, he indicated that in the next 120 days “the process will be defined so that this stage that ends, from the old concessions by bidding, becomes a new stage in which provinces, the Nation and private sector actors can carry out a new investment process for the Argentine energy sector, taking advantage of and valuing the resources of the provinces, so many times reviled, so important for the future of Argentina”.
Source: Ambito
