Hear
The polar wave that began this Wednesday in Patagonia and is expected to reach the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (AMBA) starting today put Enargas on alert. The gas regulatory entity sent a note to distributors and transporters so that take the necessary measures to guarantee supply to residential users, who in the jargon are identified as “priority demand.” This caused greater gas cuts to begin not only at CNG service stations, but also in industries, in a preventive way.
The low temperatures will continue until next Tuesday, so it is not ruled out that supply cuts could be extended to more companies in the coming days. At the moment, The gas distributors limited the fluid to users who have interruptible contracts. It is expected that their service will be cut off if they have to manage the amount of gas.
This situation particularly affects the towns of La Plata and Mar del Plata, where there are a greater number of CNG service stations with this type of contracts. In La Plata, alone Five of the 40 service stations have firm contracts, meaning the supply cannot be interrupted. In Mar del Plata, the situation is less critical, since two-thirds of the gas stations have firm contracts, but gas shortages could occur if the cutoff at stations with interruptible contracts extends for several days.
In recent days, distributors also began to cut off gas to industries with interruptible contracts and also to those with contracts “firm, but with a window”. That is, the distributor can cut off up to a certain volume of cubic meters of gas for a certain period of time, during the period of low temperatures, which extends from May to September, and after having cut off the gas to the interruptibles. In particular, Companies in the textile, beverage, wood and ceramic sectors were affected..
“The gas cutoff has not yet been reached for users with pure firm contracts,” they say in the Government.
The polar wave was anticipated this year for the months of May and once again revealed the bottleneck represented by the lack of gas pipelines. Argentina has a surplus of gas with the reservoir of Dead cowbut the lack of investment in recent years meant that This greater production has not been accompanied by the expansion of the transportation system.
The Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline, which was inaugurated last year, operates at half capacity, since The compressor plants that allow transport capacity to be doubled were not installed in time, as planned.. Therefore, the pipeline is sending less than 14 million cubic meters of gas per day (m3/d), when it should be able to transport at least 22 million.
In Escobar, the regasification ship with the capacity to convert 22 million m3/d is unloading the third liquefied natural gas (LNG) vessel acquired and the fourth is expected to arrive at port next Monday. Each ship costs around US$30 million – US$10 per million BTU (English measurement used in the sector).
This year it was decided not to hire a second regasification vessel, which is usually located in Bahía Blanca.
On the other hand, Cammesa, the state-controlled company in charge of electrical energy dispatches, put out to tender the acquisition of seven shipments of 50,000 m3 of diesel and five of fuel oil for 200,000 tons total.
Electricity generating companies are replacing the use of gas with more expensive liquid fuels, therefore there will be an impact on electricity costs, which will be absorbed by the Treasury.
Specifically, while the gas Dead cow It costs around US$5 per million BTU, diesel has an approximate cost of US$18 for a comparable measurement.
