While officials of the current energy ministry – led by Eduardo Chirillo – defend themselves against the accusations of the members of the previous administration led by the reference of Máximo Kirchner and Sergio Massa, Darío Martínez, Argentina faces a winter with very low temperatures and problems supplying industries in the north of the country.
This phenomenon caused the launch of gas imports from Bolivia, which, in the past, offered a price that was between the price of Neuquén gas and LNG. Currently, It is charging much more than liquefied gas which is imported mainly from the United States.
Among internal affairs, the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline does not materialize
While LNG is quoted between 10 and 13 dollars, Bolivian gas is being paid at $17.5 and it is expected that in August and September it could be around 20 dollars.
The decline in gas production in Bolivia, which mainly affects the Brazilian industry and part of Argentina, is another of the factors that should motivate the officials in power to finish the Néstor Kirchner and Northern gas pipelines quickly to meet demand.
While for Darío Martínez, “…the ineffectiveness, the underestimation, plus the Government’s ignorance on the energy issue, only make energy cost more and more to the country, to each consumer and to the State due to the initial suspension of the reversal work of the Northern Gas Pipeline and the Compression of GNK I which necessarily resulted in higher costs due to the need to import more LNG and Bolivian gas at prices grossly higher than what is paid for Vaca Muerta gas,” in the Chirillo offices, they explain that “…the works on the gas pipelines and compressor plants were not stopped at any time. Since we took over the administration, we have continued working on its construction. It was necessary to reformulate the inconvenient way in which Line 1 of the Tender had been configured. That line, tendered by the previous administration, opened its economic envelope 2 on October 25, 2023 and a price 70% higher than the official budget included in the specifications was found. From then on there was no movement, the evaluation commission was not issued until the change of administration, when its process was resumed.”
Now, beyond the abuse of the bureaucrats of Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos, when billing for the gas sold to Milei’s Argentina, which led Bolivian business leaders to grab their heads and affirm that “…we cannot do this with the price. We are taking advantage of the desperation of the Argentine government of Milei, when tomorrow we are going to need gas from Argentina”There is a constant tendency towards procrastination in our country that is alarming.
Procrastination, postponement or postponement, is the action of delaying activities that must be attended to, replacing them with other more irrelevant issues.
Argentina has not properly inaugurated a gas pipeline for 36 years
Argentina has been 36 years without a gas pipeline inaugurated and working at 100% of its capacity. And, it is a Nation that has oil and gas reserves.
The history of the Northeast gas pipeline is a clear and pristine example of the abandonment of a vital project for national development, whose neglect became state policy if we take into account that the announcement was made during the presidency of Néstor Kirchner and spanned the two terms of Cristina Fernández and the only one of Mauricio Macri who stopped the works when the revelations of the driver Oscar Centeno arose, which led to the so-called “notebooks” case of public works.
Struck by the bomb of energy prices that exploded in the face of the administration of Alberto Fernández and the main economies of the world due to the increase in costs and its consequences in daily life, after the invasion of the Russian Federation to Ukraine, Sergio Massa and Darío Martínez took note of the need to move forward with the construction of a trunk gas pipeline, named Néstor Kirchner, that will link Neuquén with Salliqueló, and with fundamental works, strangely paralyzed for years, such as the Northeast Gasduct.
On March 24, 2007, the Executive Branch decreed that IEASA, formerly ENARSA, would obtain the concession to operate the Gas Pipeline for 35 years, renewable, and included the responsibility of building, operating, maintaining, and marketing it.
Due to various political and economic circumstances, Argentina has not been able to complete a gas pipeline for 36 years.
The plans for the project indicated that it would cover the east of the Province of Salta and the provinces of Chaco and Santa Fe, enabling its inhabitants to have access to natural gas services in a more efficient and economical manner. “since the 378,000 potential users who are in the towns close to the gas pipeline can be reached by the benefits of gas transportation.”
Decree No. 1136/2010 entrusted IEASA with the construction of 3,000 kilometers of gas pipeline, of which 1,468 kilometers correspond to the trunk gas pipeline, the set of pipes and accessories for public use that allow the conduction of gas from the production centers to the city gates, the rest represent bypass gas pipelines to the localities, supplying 168 of them during their route and crossing territories belonging to the northeastern provinces, with a transport capacity of an additional 11,200,000 m³/d for residential consumption and industrial sector, reinforcing the existing system.
Over the years, The construction of stages I and II of the Northeast Gasduct was achieved and a branch that reaches Tostado, province of Santa Fe, was completed.
In this way, the project conceived in 2003 and approved by the late president Néstor Kirchner had the consent of the governors of Corrientes, Chaco, Entre Ríos, Formosa, Misiones, Salta and Santa Fe at that time. A 2007 Decree declared it of national public interest and a gas supply agreement was made with the government of Bolivia.
The works progressed slowly throughout the winters until they completed a route of nearly 1,500 kilometers of trunk lines and the beginning of nine branches so that natural gas could flow to homes and industries in the region.
However, in August 2018, the IEASA board of directors, which responded to Mauricio Macri’s administration, stopped the works abruptly.
The war between Russia and Ukraine has raised the price of energy worldwide, while Argentina depends on imports for its supplies.
Although some directors of the former ENARSA raised their voices explaining that the works could be finished towards the end of the Cambiemos mandate, the decision was to suspend all work. The underlying reason was the Cuadernos case and Macri’s suspicions about possible acts of corruption in the tenders and contracts in force up to that date. For a sector more critical of Cambiemos’ economic management, it was a typical case of budgetary adjustment that “today ends up costing us a hefty price.”
The reference is obvious, because Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, alerted by a few, can be taken as a “black swan”, a metaphor described by the philosopher Nassim Taleb that explains a surprising event, with great socioeconomic impact and that, once after the fact, it is rationalized by retrospection.
And, the rationalization indicates that if we had completed the Northeast Gas Pipeline, gas could have been brought from the Bolivian basin for 20 million cubic meters per day to seven provinces and think about supplying part of Buenos Aires, when La Paz and YCFB charged less than the owners of the regasification ships.
The urgency not to go through the “…winter of our discontent” to which the Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin has plunged us since he invaded Ukraine and who seems to emulate William Shakespeare’s cruel Richard III, led the former energy secretary national, Darío Martínez, will announce the tender and award of the section corresponding to the province of Salta of the Gasoducto del Noreste Argentino (GNEA), when participating in the 8th Assembly of Governors of the Northern Great Argentine of the month of February 2022.
On the other hand, the energy area of the Frente de Todos government, dominated by former officials who responded to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, did not refrain from denouncing before the Justice the Macri officials who made the strange decision to finish the works that dated back to 2007.
In June 2021, a request was made to the Federal Court to Judge Ariel Lijo’s office so that federal prosecutor Carlos Stornelli, the same one in charge of the Cuadernos case, could investigate the management of IEASA, headed by Mario del Acqua, during the Cambiemos government for abuse of authority by illegally and arbitrarily stopping a work considered to be of national interest and a possible detriment to the National State.
The Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline would greatly reduce the payment of gas imports from Bolivia.
Bolivia increases the price of gas and Argentina spends more on imports
At that moment, Bolivia began to adjust its billing for gas sales to the country upwards. Martínez even publicly celebrated what he considered a slight increase in the volume of gas to be imported from Bolivia and the high price that the country will have to pay due to upward fluctuations in the international energy market.
Darío Martínez then explained that “the average price that was agreed with Bolivia is around 12.18 US$ per million BTU and will mean relief for the Treasury because the international price of LNG triples that value and diesel oil more than doubles it.” “.
In November 2011, during the administration of Cristina Fernández, the “world-class discovery” was announced Discover unconventional hydrocarbons in the Vaca Muerta formationIt had to be extracted and transported. Only in 2019, Mauricio Macri’s government called for the construction of the Vaca Muerta-San Nicolás gas pipeline project with the granting of a 35-year license.
As with the Northern Gas Pipeline, the consequences of the war in Eastern Europe accelerated the tenders for which the Techint Group, through its subsidiary Tenaris, obtained the contracts for the manufacturing of the pipes for the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline.
For all these reasons and for many other reasons from the past, the habit of procrastinating had been noted as one of the characteristics of Argentines by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset when, at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UBA, in 1916, he exclaimed “Argentines, to things, to things.”
The call for attention had no effect. The last properly completed gas trunk pipeline in Argentina will be 36 years old.
