The electric generators, grouped in AGEERA, sent a letter to the Minister of Economy Luis Caputo refusing to pay Cammesa’s overdue debt with bonds that trade at half their value.
Economía published this Wednesday resolution 58/2024 that resolves the pending payment for December and January with the bonus AE38, which represents a 50% reduction in the debt for energy subsidies that the Government has with electricity generators and gas producers (oil companies).
AGEERAwhich brings together companies such as Pampa, AES and Central Puerto, does not agree with the payment method because, according to what they claim, it affects the contractual rights of the generators and is “a violation of their right to private property.”
Furthermore, they indicated in the note, “it impacts the assumed financial commitments by some generators with whom they granted financing to develop investments in their respective plants” and “implies an additional reduction in the remuneration of the generators that sell their energy to the Spot in pesos, which has already been strongly devalued by high inflation of the last few months”.
The note is signed by the president of AGEERA, Gabriel Baldassarreaand was sent with a copy to the Secretary of Energy, Eduardo Rodríguez Chirillo and the general manager of Cammesa, Jorge Garavaglia.
Between the seven reasons to oppose the payment method chosen by the Government, the entity assures that “it directly affects the operation, maintenance and investment programs in generation unnecessarily increasing the risk of the electrical systemparticularly to the plants that sell their energy to the Spot, in pesos and at outdated prices.”
They also state that “it turns out an alteration to awarded contracts in public bidding processes, which generates a precedent that will discourage new investmentsas has happened in the past.”
The generators add that the payment with bonds “compromises the responsibility of CAMMESA and the National State (Secretariat of Energy), as it would affect acquired rights of the Generating Agents which are part of their property.
Finally, the companies maintain that “affects legal certainty in general, and particularly in the wholesale electricity market (MEM), which is extremely serious since it would be the first chance since the creation of the MEM, in the that the Public Administration unilaterally modifies supply contracts.
The total debt that the Wholesale Electricity Market Administration Company (Cammesa) has with energy and oil generators until last month reached $1,074,258,000,000 ($1.07 billion) or the equivalent of about 1.25 billion dollars. The Treasury will have to take care of that, by maintaining subsidies for households -by setting prices that do not fully reflect the costs of the system-.
At a time when the Government is seeking the Senate to approve the Base Law with its chapter on incentives for large investments (RIGI), the companies remember that the contracts with CAMMESA were signed “within the framework of investment promotion regimes in a sector in which, despite the need for new generation, the conditions for private investment were not in place as a result of a price signal strongly distorted by subsidies.”
For this reason, they assure that “a unilateral modification, both in the contracts and in the other acquired rights, would have a strong impact on the electricity market and signals for future investmentas well as in the financial credibility of companies, the market and the country. In this way, a financial problem in the energy market would become a failure of the National State, a strong sign of lack of legal security”.
Especially unacceptable
For electric companies it is “particularly unacceptable” that the Government has tied the cash payment of February debts to companies accepting payment of December and January debts through bonds. Furthermore, they assure that, since mid-April, Cammesa had funds available to pay them.
The note concludes by warning that many generators, due to this lack of payment, were forced to “reschedule maintenance, defer the cancellation of current operating costs, postpone the treatment of union joint ventures, being subject to forceful measures and have even been forced to put the payment of salaries at risk, in many cases finding themselves at the limit of their financial capabilities. This situation affects the normal development of our activity and. critically compromises the operational continuity of the System“.
