The government has begun to sell off Enarsa’s assets before the passing of the basic law, which provides for the privatisation of the energy company.
Enarsa began to “present” to gas producers the benefits of Transportadora Gas del Centro (TGC), one of the three transporters that belong to the state company. They offer producers entry to the RIGI to enjoy its tax, customs and exchange benefits.
“The law didn’t even come out and they are already auctioning off the assets,” an Enarsa source told LPO. “It is a scrapping of assets and the State keeps the liabilities, the same old story,” she explained.
There are three gas transport companies in Argentina. The most attractive, Transportadora Gas del Sur (TGS), is owned by Pampa Energía, which took over the operation of the Néstor Kirchner de Vaca Muerta gas pipeline, which belongs to Enarsa. TGS is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the pipeline.
Transportadora Gas del Norte (TGN) has the northern gas pipeline that was originally planned to import gas from Bolivia, but the decline in Bolivian hydrocarbon production and the boom in Vaca Muerta, which today produces more than the entire neighboring country, urged to reverse the direction of the gas flow to ensure supply in the northern region of the country and to be able to export gas at super competitive prices to São Paulo, the industrial heart of Brazil. For this, the reversal of the gas pipeline is needed.
This work is what makes the value of TGC attractive, which remained state-owned because it was always the least profitable of the three, since it only distributed in the center: it was not the one brought from Bolivia nor the one that left Vaca Muerta.
But with the reversal of the TGC northern gas pipeline it became an extraordinary business, since it will control gas export flow. For this reason, it was listed on the local stock exchange on March 4, where the other two transport companies had already been listed for years.
Presentation About TGC by LPO
