In addition to the particular refilling problems that occurred last week at some stations that momentarily suspended the sale of CNG, the oil plants began to burn other “alternative” fuels in order to maintain their operation due to the cutoff in the gas supply.
The photo from the beginning of the week that found the CNG stations of the AMBA and different areas of the country with long lines of cars at the service stations because there was no CNG opened a great crisis in the government due to the lack of gas supply.
The crisis committee headed by the Ministry of Energy had to define last week cutting off the supply to all CNG stations in the country and also to large industrial users and thermal power plants. Among these large users are the oil companies in our industrial belt that use the gas for different equipment, especially the boilers in charge of powering the large electricity generation turbines.
Faced with this situation, the oil companies supplemented the supply with other fuels such as fuel oil and diesel, fuels called alternative by CAMMESA but that have nothing to do with clean fuels since they have a more polluting impact on natural common goods and the population. For example, fuel oil generates 77.4 tons of CO2/TJ (or 3.12 kg CO2/liter), well above the emission factors for gas, which is about 56.1 Ton CO2/TJ (or 1. 95 kg CO2/m3). These fuel changes occur sporadically in the plants but have their limitations since fuel oil has a limit on the amount of sulfur in its use regulations (it must be less than 1%). There have been cases, for example, in the province of Buenos Aires where high levels of sulfur caused strange and harmful “mists” for vehicles and homes, not to mention the health complications they bring to people and animals.
The Government that sought to excuse itself for the lack of gas with a peak in consumption due to low autumn temperatures well below usual and problems in two gas compressor plants in San Luis and Córdoba, has its main cause in the cut in the public work in charge of continuing the gas transportation pipeline from the Vaca Muerta fields in Neuquén, which if completed would help solve this problem.
This decision by the government to not foresee and invest in time and form in the public works necessary to improve gas distribution costs the country a million, since the investment that was around US$ 20M-50M to continue the gas pipeline will end up costing about US$500M for the import of LNG from Brazilian ships of the state company Petrobras. “With ours,” as the government spokesmen and Milei himself like to say while they carry out a brutal cut in pensions, there are thousands of layoffs at the State plant and they allow food to expire while not distributing it to the soup kitchens. All signs of the war plan that this government is carrying out towards the workers.
