Argentina: the Government prioritizes gas for homes and businesses and some industries will have to stop their production

The unusual polar cold wave will force measures to be anticipated to prevent supply shortages.

Given the advance of the polar wave, the Government will move forward with natural gas cuts to some industries in order to avoid supply problems amid a demand that has almost doubled.

Cammesa, the company in charge of energy dispatch, urgently put out to tender the purchase of 12 shipments of fuel oil and diesel to address the increase in gas consumption.

The arrival of the cold in the central area of ​​the country took the Ministry of Energy by surprise, which had scheduled the arrival of low temperatures only for the first week of June.

The “priority demand” (homes and businesses) is already on track to use almost 80 million cubic meters (m3) per day, when in May it usually demands 45 million.

Industries with high demand for gas, such as lumber, ceramics and plastics, will suffer cuts.

The lack of gas already began to affect Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) service stations with interruptible contracts last week.

In the sector they explain that if the gas was not cut off to these users due to a lack of product and a drop in the pressure of the gas pipelines, electricity cuts that use gas as an input would have to begin.

The emergency scenario was caused by temperatures much lower than expected for this time of year.

In Córdona, an undetermined number of industries began receiving orders this Friday to interrupt the consumption of natural gas for their processes.

This was confirmed by a director of the Industrial Union of Córdoba (UIC), pointing out that the entity has already registered several cases of gas outages due to lack of fluid in the system.