Oilfield billionaire Paolo Rocca has ‘lot of hope’ for Argentina and Milei
Parliamentary representatives from European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland)
Paolo Rocca, billionaire chief of oil-pipe maker Tenaris SA, said expectations are high that President Javier Milei can turbo-charge development of the country’s shale deposits.
The Vaca Muerta basin has natural gas reserves potentially higher than those in the Permian Basin and crude reserves comparable to the giant US field, Rocca said Wednesday.
Vaca Muerta’s oil production, currently at about 300,000 barrels a day, could grow to more than one million barrels in the next six or seven years, headded.
“The problem is above the surface, the regulatory environment,” he said at the CERAWEEK by S&P Global energy conference in Houston.
Rocca, who has a net worth of US$15 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, said he thinks Milei will succeed in reducing the regulatory burden. “We have a lot of hope in the new president,” he said.
Expanding pipelines and other infrastructure in Vaca Muerta would resolve a key bottleneck holding back the shale patch. Rocca would likely benefit from such a build-out. Units of his Techint Group empire helped construct the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline that was inaugurated last year. Rocca’s drilling company, Tecpetrol, also has plans to ramp up production.
The way business leaders have courted Milei has caught the eye of his critics after he came to power on an anti-establishment platform, which saw him berate politicians and their relationships with powerful business figures.
Yet since Milei came to power in December, several of Rocca’s former employees in Argentina have been handed positions at staterun energy company YPF SA.
Tenaris is one of the biggest suppliers to the global oil and natural gas industry for steel, a key ingredient for pipelines and producing wells underground.
Argentina’s government could seal a key trade deal with euro nations before the end of the year – but the agreement won’t be the much-hyped deal with the European Union.
Rather than the high-profile Eu-mercosur deal, which remains stalled after almost two decades of negotiations, diplomats at the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires are shifting their focus to finalising a free-trade agreement with the four nations that form the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).
Made up of non-eu states Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, the EFTA promotes free trade and economic integration for the benefit of its member states. After the visit of a parliamentary delegation to Argentina and Brazil this week, hopes for a deal with this smaller bloc have been reignited.
At a press briefing in downtown Buenos Aires on Wednesday, Swiss lawmaker Thomas Aeschi (Swiss People’s Party), the head of the EFTA delegation, expressed optimism over the likelihood of a quick deal.
He said that officials at the Foreign Ministry had indicated that with the EU deal blocked, there is extra diplomatic scope for focusing on the EFTA deal.
“My personal impression is that Argentina is very willing and very much in favour of a free-trade agreement” with EFTA, said Aeschi.
“I think they realise that on the European Union side for the next couple of months,there will not be too much movement,” he added, saying he expected resources to be shifted to negotiations with EFTA and that the deal could act as a “stepping stone” to the EU deal.
“We firmly believe that a free-trade agreement between our nations would benefit us quite well and we are committed to working towards a successful outcome,” declared Ingibjörg Ólöf Isaksen (Progressive Party), the head of the Icelandic delegation.
Earlier this month, Mercosur and EFTA agreed to relaunch talks over a free-trade agreement between the two blocs. Talks previously had not “formally stopped,” said the delegation, but had “stalled” since the outlines of a deal were agreed in 2018.
A second round of negotiations are scheduled for next month, revealed Aeschi.
Commercial trade between EFTA nations and Mercosur reached US$5.8 billion in 2018, with US$3.7 billion made up of European exports to the South American bloc. By last year, bilateral trade had reached 7.4 billion euros (around US$8 billion).
A few remaining “open points” – which include disagreements on wine, intellectual property rights, sustainability and point of origin issues – are yet to be resolved, added the EFTA delegation chief, who said he expected those issues to be overcome.
“We stressed in our meetings that the EFTA states are less dogmatic and more flexible than the European Union and we’re aiming at finding a solution that suits both negotiating partners,” he said.
The visiting delegation – representing some 14 million inhabitants across four nations – met with lawmakers from the lower house Chamber of Deputies during their stay in Argentina and said the reception had been overwhelmingly positive.
Juliana Santillán (La Libertad Avanza), the vice-president of the lower house’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement midweek that the deal would increase investment and capital.
Aeschi also stressed the importance of this agreement “as a benefit that encourages investment and the enormous potential for exchange between the two blocs.”
The reception in Argentina had been very “encouraging,” agreed Norwegian MP Heidi Norby Lunde (Conservative Party).
Quizzed about the meetings held with Argentine officials while in Buenos Aires, she compared the atmosphere within President Javier Milei’s new administration as reminiscent of her own nation’s 2013 change of government.
“I recognise the feeling of optimism and the will to go forward, trying to implement everything that you have been talking about,” she said.
Karina “el jefe” Milei, Cabinet Chief Nicolás Posse and spin doctor supremo Santiago Caputo are the trio that make up the “Bermuda triangle” that is stalking the ministers and officials of the Javier Milei’s fledgling government.
The powerful trio are responsible for at least nine highl evel exits and resignations in the first 100 days of libertarian government. Or that at least was the explanation given to Perfil by one of the rejects, who assures that there are already several making reference to that maritime triangle where ships and aircraft have been mysteriously disappearing for centuries.
The methodology repeats itself. Officials advance in what they suppose is their exclusive area of work without suspecting that they are meddling with some aspect of interest to Posse or Karina. Without any previous alert, they are then summoned to explain themselves but it is too late for arguments at that stage.
Without being given any time to reply, their exits are leaked to the media while some rapid response is sought.
“Karina is the presidential rear guard. If she lowers her thumb, there is no time to make any last defence in front of Javier. The role of [Santiago] Caputo is to set the most deeply ideological course. Posse is the guardian of the administration and the toughest of them all,” an ex-official who has passed through that triangle explained to Perfil.
“When you see an exit without understanding the reason, take an attentive look at the Official Gazette in the next few days and you will see who in the Cabinet has remained with something of that,” was their summary.
With the recent exit of Omar Yasín as Labour secretary, nine officials have been ejected until now by the Karina-caputo-posse trio. The official arguments were far from being the real motives for throwing them out. This latest case was presented as Yasín’s presumed responsibility for the scandal of the Executive Branch salaries but it was, in reality, Posse’s aspiration to place Grupo Techint’s former lawyer Julio Cordero in the post.
The same fate was suffered by Osvaldo Giordano, the former director of ANSES social security administration, whom Milei accused of “sleeping with the enemy” as the husband of Alejandra Torres, the HCF (Hacemos Coalición Federal) deputy who voted against an article of the ‘Ley de Bases’ omnibus bill during its second reading.
Before Yasin, Human Capital Minister Sandra Pettovello had thrown out his Labour undersecretary Horacio Pitrau.
One of the first to go was Eduardo Roust, who started out as Communication under secretary without ever receiving official confirmation of his role. In the same part of government, Media & Communication secretary Belén Stettler was an early dismissal.
Former Mining secretary Flavia Royón became a target for “responding” to Salta Governor Gustavo Sáenz, one of those dubbed a “traitor” by the government.
One of the noisiest exits was Infrastructure “superminister” Guillermo Ferraro. While a press operation was installed that he had been dumped for leaking information to the media, Posse had reportedly wanted his head to hang onto key areas of the management of state companies and questions referring to ENACOM regulatory agency of communications including Internet.
Enrique Rodríguez Chiantore, in charge of monitoring health services (Superintendencia de Servicios de Salud), learned of his dismissal via Whatsapp: “I got up in the morning when I had several messages saying: ‘I’m so sorry,’ so I opened the Official Gazette and saw the news,” he explained to Radio Mitre.
Posse had dismissed him “to increase the influence of Mario Lugones, the Cabinet chief’s advisor,” he then told the La Nación newspaper.
The latest departure was Pablo Rodrigué, the official in charge of distributing food to soup kitchens under the orbit of Social Development Secretary Pablo de la Torre.