The Planning, Economic Affairs and Tourism Commission of the Río Negro Legislature This week, it began to discuss the project sent by the Executive to extend the hydrocarbon concessions.
The Government seeks, in this way, to enable the Secretary of State for Energy and Environment to extend for 10 more years the contracts with companies that are interested in continuing to exploit conventional deposits in the province.
The first legislative meeting was attended by mayors from different oil-producing municipalities. The initiative provides for the extension of the terms of 75 percent of the exploitation concessions.
In total there are 21 concessions that may 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 seek to sustain activity and investments.”argued Mariela Moya from the Hydrocarbons Secretariat.
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The meeting was attended by the mayors of Cervantes, Claudia Montanaro; of Catriel, Daniela Salzotto; of Cinco Saltos, Enrique Rossi; of Fernández Oro, Gustavo Amati; of Cipolletti, Rodrigo Buteler; of Campo Grande, Daniel Hernández; of Lamarque, Sergio Hernández; and the Secretary of Finance of General Roca, Pablo Rolo.
Questions
The mayor of Catriel, Daniela Salzotto, denounced non-compliance in the remediation of environmental liabilities and stated that the project “it attacks producing municipalities.” On the other hand, he indicated that oil production considerably damages the routes, generating a deficit in infrastructure. He also criticized the “lack of information on investment plans” and failure to comply with “buy local”.
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In her turn, the legislator of the Vamos con Todos bloc, Magdalena Odarda, assured that it is a “hidden renegotiation and not an extension”. He criticized the granting of “extraordinary powers” to the Energy Secretariat and stressed that “the environmental liability has not been remedied.”
The president of the commission dealing with the project, Carlos Valeri, responded that a surety bond will be applied to execute in the event of an environmental liability and other non-compliance that may arise. Valeri indicated that carrying out an analysis and monitoring is contemplated so that, if a situation of these characteristics arises, it can be quickly corrected.
Next week, a new meeting will be held at the Energy Secretariat building in Cipolletti, with the participation of unions, landowners and chambers of producers in the sector.
