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Argentina seizes gas firm
Argentina will start to swirl the drain by the end of the year. Sure hope President Romney can face up to this challenge...
Facing intense criticism over the nationalization of its biggest oil firm, Argentina on Thursday ordered the seizure of YPF Gas, another group controlled by Spain's Repsol, a move expected to further inflame tensions. In a case that has sparked fears of a new wave of expropriations, a statement published in the official gazette said the Argentine government was declaring YPF Gas a public utility and taking 51 percent of the shares.

YPF Gas is not technically part of the YPF oil group ordered nationalized this week, leading to global condemnation, but a separate company. However, an 85 percent stake in the gas firm is owned by Repsol Butano SA, a division of the Spanish energy giant.

Officials said the move was an extension of the takeover of YPF, the big unit of Repsol that Argentina decided to seize this week.

The government statement indicates that YPF Gas "plays an essential role in Argentina's hydrocarbon policy."
Which is not a justification for seizing it, unless you're a 'progressive'...
The move expands the nationalization effort ordered by Argentina, which claimed the Spanish firm was failing to invest in the country and forcing it to import more of its energy supplies.

Spain, the United States, the IMF, the European Union and others lined up to take turns slamming the move by President Cristina Kirchner.

During a visit to Colombia on Thursday, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy again slammed the move as "an injustice," but declined to comment on how his government might retaliate.
Ah, the invertebrate European leaders. Bring out the comfy chair!
On Thursday, World Bank head Robert Zoellick added his criticism to Argentina's move.

"I think it's a mistake and I think it's a symptom that we have to watch out for -- if under economic pressure, whether countries will move to more national, autarchic policies, respond more to nationalism, more to protectionism," Zoellick said at a news conference.

Later he told CNN that Argentina should concede the move is a mistake and reverse it.

"This is not the time to be playing with fire, and ultimately, it will leave Argentina behind in the international economy, and that hurts the people of Argentina, and that is who I am concerned about," he said. "What investor in his right mind would put money into a country where people are taking away private property?"

Repsol bought Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales in 1999 for $15 billion in what was the biggest operation of the privatization program of former Argentine president Carlos Menem.

Kirchner has argued that the expropriation was justified because YPF crude production had dropped while oil and gas imports doubled in 2011. Imports are forecast to triple by the end of the year.
Argentina also faces a drop in its trade surplus -
- down 11 percent in 2011 -- which is its main source of hard currency since foreign credit markets closed their doors after the 2001 debt default.
Posted by: Steve White 2012-04-20
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=343161