(ADN).- The Planning, Economic Affairs and Tourism Commission of the Río Negro Legislature began yesterday to discuss the project to extend hydrocarbon concessions in the province. The meeting was attended by mayors from different municipalities who presented their opinions regarding the project promoted by the Executive.
The initiative enables the Secretary of State for Energy and Environment to extend for ten years the contracts with the concessionaire companies, which must be registered in a Provincial Registry that would be created with the law.
Secretariat officials gave details of the project. Mariela Moya, from the Hydrocarbons Secretariat, explained its scope. She indicated that it involves the extension of the concession terms of 75 percent of the exploitation concessions. In total there are 21 that are in a position to be extended, whose expirations are between 2025 and 2028.
“We are moving forward a couple of years because we see that the situation is critical in terms of investments and production. We must take a step forward before the situation becomes irreversible. We are seeking to sustain activity and investments,” he said.
«Our proposal is based on updating a new extension contract, considering the current situation of the hydrocarbon industry, with the presence of non-conventional ones, taking into account what things did not help us in previous contracts with respect to control and supervision. The idea is to strengthen control and supervision so that day-to-day life is more effective and we can have control of investments in the province,” he added.
The mayors agreed to highlight the space for dialogue provided by the commission chaired by Carlos Valeri. The most debated point was the one that establishes the sums of money that the province, municipalities, communes and development commissions would receive as an Extension Bonus. Several community leaders and some opposition legislators questioned the 10 percent percentage that the municipalities will receive and asked for it to be higher; some spoke of taking it to 20 percent.
Another question was regarding environmental liabilities. The mayor of Catriel, Daniela Salzotto, summarized the opposition’s criticism. She reported failure to remediate environmental liabilities. She assured that the project “attacks the producing municipalities.” She also maintained that oil production generates a large infrastructure deficit, leaving routes destroyed. She also criticized the “lack of information on investment plans” and the failure to comply with “buy local.”
Magdalena Odarda was also critical: “We understand that there is a covert renegotiation and not an extension,” she warned. She questioned whether “extraordinary powers” were granted to the Ministry of Energy. She also stressed that “the environmental liability has not been remedied.”
Faced with criticism from the opposition, the president of the ruling bloc, Facundo López, assured that “we are not coming to hide anything from anyone, nor to harm anyone, we are seeing if we can all generate an extension of a contract so that there are more investments in Río Negro. “We are not going to forgive anyone’s debts.”
Regarding the criticism about the percentage of the extension bonus, he noted: “whether there was 14 or 10 percent, it was and is the will of Governor Alberto Weretilneck, it was a political decision. Because it can happen, as happens in other cases, that the royalties are not shared with anyone. On the other hand, the Governor has always tried to incorporate and distribute among all the municipalities, because he has a municipalist conception, because he has been mayor and his formation was within a municipality.
The mayors of Cervantes, Claudia Montanaro, participated in the meeting; from Catriel, Daniela Salzotto; from Cinco Saltos, Enrique Rossi, from Fernández Oro, Gustavo Amati, from Cipolletti, Rodrigo Buteler; from Campo Grande, Daniel Hernández; from Lamarque, Sergio Hernández; and the Secretary of the Treasury of General Roca, Pablo Rolo.
