La Carlota, a town in the south of Córdoba, At the end of April, he witnessed the first welding of the set of steel pipes that will form part of the new pipeline in that area that will join two of the most important gas pipelines in the country.
The pipeline, called the Federal Integration Gasduct and located entirely in the province of Córdoba, will transport – once completed – natural gas in a south-north direction, from the Central-West Gasduct to the North Gasduct.
The work, one of the very few national projects that was saved from the “chainsaw” of President Javier Milei, is part of the work on the Reversal of the Northern Gas Pipeline, a complementary project to the President Néstor Kirchner Gas Pipeline (GPNK) that will allow linking gas from Vaca Muerta, in Neuquén, with the central and northern provinces of the country.
Currently, gas can only “come down” from Salta, mainly transporting gas imported from Bolivia. The reversal will allow, in the not too distant future, even the export of gas across the northern border.
Specifically, the Federal Integration Gasduct connects La Carlota with Tío Pujio with 122 kilometers of 36-inch diameter pipes.
Of that total, 100 kilometers are already in progress (they are being done by Sacde-Techint) and the other 22 are those that have started now, being safe from Milei’s cut.
The original project had to be completed before winter (in May), but it will no longer be possible before spring due to the lack of definition that occurred between November and March in the midst of the elections and the transfer of command.
The problem is that since June, Bolivia no longer has the obligation to sell at least five million cubic meters per day of firm gas. Thus, the winter will have to be passed without reversal.
“Messirve”
The work of the pipeline on Córdoba soil is in charge of the contractor BTU, a company that in March offered the lowest price in the tender for the 22 kilometers. It is the same one that will carry out another section of the project: the construction of two parallel lines to the Northern Gas Pipeline with 30-inch diameter pipes, also in the province of Córdoba.
Led by mechanical engineer Carlos Mundín, BTU surpassed in the competition the union of two giants, Techint and Sacde (with two heavyweights behind: Paolo Rocca and Marcelo Mindlin), and a rare foreign “player” on these counters: Pumpco Pipeline Construction, one of the largest pipeline specialist companies in the United States.
Pumpco, since 2008, belongs to MasTec Inc., the company of Jorge Mas, the Cuban-American president of Inter Miami, the MLS franchise where Lionel Messi plays.
During the construction of the GPNK, Pumpco provided the machines to make the trenches and now decided to compete for the works themselves.
Regarding the tender in question, the thing is like this: the original certification had three lines or parts. Techint-Sacde won lines 2 and 3, while the offers of the first were too high and only that first part was declared void, as business sources explained to The voice.
Given this circumstance, in order to carry out the work, the Government reformulated line 1 into two new ones, which were later gained by BTU.
In summary, BTU outbid Techint-Sacde in one part of the tender, while it was the other way around in other parts of the tender, which include 100 kilometers of pipeline on Córdoba soil.
Reversal to save millions
In the first days of April, meanwhile, contracts were signed to carry out the change of flow direction of four compressor plants, another of the projects necessary for the reversal.
Two of them are in Córdoba (in Ferreyra and Deán Funes), and the other two in Lavalle (Santiago del Estero) and Lumbreras (Salta).
Esuco, owned by Ramiro Juez, won the tender with better offers than those of Contreras Hermanos and Víctor Contreras.
The work of making the necessary modifications for the bidirectional operation of the four plants “is essential to bring the gas from Vaca Muerta to the Argentine northwest and thus replace the fluid that is imported from Bolivia, whose production is in decline,” explained Enarsa. in one of the latest publications of the company under state control.
The reversal gained prominence in recent days due to Brazil’s interest in importing gas from Vaca Muerta. Without that work, this would be impossible.
The complete cost of the reversion project totals US$ 740 million, of which US$ 540 million is part of a loan from the Development Bank for Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) and the rest, financing from Cammesa.
According to official calculations, the reversal will allow annual savings of US$ 1,960 million due to import substitution.
