TUBING DOWN THE TUBES?
The Southern Energy (SESA) consortium – composed of Pan American Energy (30 percent), YPF (25 percent) and Pampa Energía (20 percent) with the other shares held by Britain’s Harbour Energy and the Norwegian Golar – has awarded the contract for supplying tubing for the gas pipeline connecting the Vaca Muerta shale deposits with the Río Negro coast to the Indian company Welspun Corp Ltd. after underbidding Grupo Techint, the traditional supplier of energy infrastructure in Argentina by 40 percent, an award apparently made just before Christmas but only receiving media attention this week. Deregulation & State Transformation Minister Federico Sturzenegger defended the result on the basis of the cost benefit but although the tender was between private companies, the setback for Techint rapidly acquired a political impact. Welspun (one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of tubing with an installed capacity of 2.55 million tons) was not alone in their interest, topping 15 other international bidders from countries like China, Spain, Mexico and Turkey, attracted by the benefits of the RIGI incentive scheme for major investments. Techint CEO Paolo Rocca tried to reverse the decision by offering to match the Welspun price and by threatening legal action against his rivals by accusing them of dumping Chinese scrap metal but the former option foundered when SESA refused to accept counter-offers beyond the tender deadline. The initial Techint bid was US$280 million as against Welspun’s US$203 million. Local business sources said that loss of the contract could lead to the closure of the Siat plant in Valentín Alsina employing 420 workers. On Tuesday President Javier Milei escalated the political angle by calling Rocca “Don Chatarrín (petty scrap dealer) of the EXPENSIVE tubing.”
PATAGONIAN TRUSTEESHIP I
The government has placed the port of Ushuaia under national trusteeship for 12 months (with the possibility of extension), it was published on January 22 in the Official Gazette, justifying the move on the grounds of financial irregularities, misallocation of port funds and deficiencies in infrastructure and operational safety. The trusteeship was also based judicially on a lawsuit lodged by the trade union of railway senior staff over the port surplus and up to a third of funds allegedly being diverted to the healthcare scheme for provincial employees with that union’s secretary-general Juan Avellaneda now emerging as the top trustee with the assistance of managers appointed by the national government. This initiative comes at the height of the Antarctic cruiser season with the terminal operating at the limits of its capacity in a record season with over 100,000 passengers booked through to April. The Tierra del Fuego provincial government under Governor Gustavo Melella strongly rejected the trusteeship with the provincial port administration denouncing it as arbitrary and based on “false technical pretexts” – how could the trusteeship suspend activities on the grounds that the port was unfit to operate and then proceed to operate, they asked? The provincial government confirmed that they would take the issue to court as overriding provincial autonomy. During last weekend a new issue arose in Tierra del Fuego when an aircraft of the United States Air Force carrying US Congress committee members exploring Patagonian mineral potential landed at the local Malvinas Argentinas Airport, leading Senator Cándida López (Peronist-Tierra del Fuego) to complain of a violation of sovereignty.
PATAGONIAN TRUSTEESHIP II
Just before last weekend the National Parks Administration (APN in its Spanish acronym) placed both Los Alerces national park in Chubut and the local government authorities under national trusteeship in a context of fire-fighting, as well as to permit a thorough handling of the criminal investigations, which are highly sensitive both politically and socially. Following an evaluation on the ground by APN chief Sergio Álvarez and senior fire-fighters, a “trusteeship committee” will take over all the attributes of local government until the institutional and administrative situation has returned to normal. On Wednesday Senator Patricia Bullrich, who heads the La Libertad Avanza caucus, admitted the possibility of the fire crisis being included in the agenda of next month’s extraordinary sessions of Congress while Córdoba Governor Martín Llaryora threw his support behind his Patagonian colleagues in requesting a state of emergency. On Thursday the national government allocated a further 120 billion pesos to the fire-fighting efforts.
MORE GOVERNMENT TURNOVER
The government started the week with more resignations, headed by RENAPER National Registry head Pablo Santos, replaced as from tomorrow by Diego Pérez Lorgueilleux. The exit of Paul Starc from the helm of the UIF (Unidad de Información Financiera) agency to monitor money-laundering was also formalised with Ernesto Gaspari, also close to top spin doctor Santiago Caputo, as his successor. Starc now moves to the board of directors of BICE (Banco de Inversión y Comercio Exterior). Transport Secretary Luis Pierrini’s replacement by Fernando Herrmann was also formalised. Finally, ENARGAS regulatory agency trustee Carlos Casares was replaced by Marcelo Nachón.
MILEI – THE REAL THING
President Javier Milei was in full throat in Mar del Plata last Tuesday, both in speech and song, delivering a fiery harangue against the left at the La Derecha Fest and singing at the 'Fátima Universal' show of his old flame Fátima Florez where he was the star guest. Referring to his recent appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Milei said: “Davos is a place to give battle for souls,” implying that the fight was not only economic but also cultural and philosophical. During his speech he encouraged an interruption by militants singing "Cristina tobillera" to the music of Bonnie Tyler’s 'It's a heartache' in reference to ex-president Cristina Kirchner’s house arrest, adding that not only should she be punished "but also all partners in the private sector making shady business deals," in an apparent reference to Techint CEO Paolo Rocca and the controversial Vaca Muerta tubing tender.
MILEI – THE PARODY
President Javier Milei’s latest entry into international fame took the form of a skit on the emblematic Saturday Night Live television show in the United States, in which he was impersonated by the actor Marcello Hernández (of Cuban and Dominican Republic parentage) supposedly presenting the prize for “Best International Feature Film” to his US colleague Donald Trump at a parody of the Oscars ceremony renamed the Trumps in which all the statuettes have the face of the Republican President. “Leader, visionary and the dude who recently posted me US$20 billion. All that describes my best friend Donald Trump,” said the pseudo-Milei, in direct reference to last October’s currency swap, for which words he is rewarded with a cheque for a further US$10 billion. “I’ll accept this prize to take Greenland,” is the reply of the Trump imitator. Milei has previously been mentioned on Saturday Night Live but never parodied.
BEEF ALLOCATED
The government last Thursday formalised the distribution of this year’s beef quota of 20,000 tons (or 19,956.34, to be exact) cleared for export to the United States among 72 meatpackers of the 76 applicants.
CINEMA RATINGS SCRAPPED
Decree 50/2026, published last Tuesday in the Official Gazette with the signatures of President Javier Milei and Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni, repealed Decree 828/84 and with it over four decades of its cinema rating system now effectively delegated to the INCAA film institute with responsibility for protecting children from improper film content now falling on parents and guardians. Until then all films had to be rated by the now dissolved Comisión Asesora de Exhibiciones Cinematográficas – ATP (Apto para Todo Público) could be seen by everybody while +13, +16 and +18 indicated unsuitability for audiences below those ages. The decree deemed the ratings board unnecessary bureaucracy, especially since around two-thirds of screenings in Argentina originate from the United States where the films are already rated.
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