The former Undersecretary of Electric Energy of the Nation Federico Basualdo He analyzed the country’s energy situation and assured that this year will end with a large positive energy balance, due to the infrastructure works implemented.
“The energy deficit has existed since 2011,” but it will turn out that way, he said. “Since 2012, with the recovery of YPF and the development of a strategic plan that allowed YPF and other private companies to exploit non-conventional resources in Vaca Muerta, hydrocarbon production has improved and the path to self-sufficiency that was lost in 2011 has been taken.”he said in conversation with AM 530.
Basualdo considered in this framework that “Today we are in a different position in terms of trade balance and energy sector thanks to the path that began in 2012”where development was aimed at having greater production and infrastructure.
Basualdo said that the energy sector will have a Energy trade balance of 5 billion dollars in 2024and that not only was self-sufficiency guaranteed, but an export platform was developed that allows the country an alternative generation of foreign currency to the agricultural sector.
In this way, the former official assured that “Argentina is now in a position to stop importing energy, that depends on the government finishing the Néstor Kirchner Gas Pipeline.” The former undersecretary recalled the “dysfunctionality” of the government he was part of and indicated that although “the gas pipeline was one of the projects that we managed to complete, others were stopped by internal fights and egos.”
“The pipeline is already built and all that is left is to activate the compressor plants. Now it is the responsibility of this government,” he emphasized.
Moving on to the policies implemented by Milei’s government, the former official of Alberto Fernández’s administration considered that “In terms of economic policy, this government has no interest in the domestic market and in economic growth.”
What did he say about the deregulation of fuels, gas cylinders and energy?
There he explained that the energy model that Milei is carrying out is one of a “of total deregulation” where “the officials and the sanction of the basic law indicate what the horizon is for the energy sector and its relationship with the Argentine economy”
For Basualdo, the libertarian management “In terms of economic policy, it has no interest in the domestic market and in economic growth,” since -he said- it does not point “not to a program of industrial development, but of deregulation and competition with the international market”
In this regard, he gave the example of the liberalisation of the price of gas cylinders, where “the deregulation of maximum prices implies that all households, industries and businesses that consume LPG will pay the international price, which eliminates a policy of protection for the sectors that consume this good produced in Argentina.”
Along the same lines, he placed what is happening with oil. “This is already happening with the systematic updating of gasoline prices, and the same is being pointed out with the electricity and natural gas sectors. This is what makes the economy less competitive.”
Finally, Basualdo wondered to what extent Argentines will support this policy that the national government is applying in the energy field.
Source: Ambito
