MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Patagonian governors threaten to cut oil and gas output

Governors Torres (Chubut), Melella (Tierra del Fuego), Ziliotto (La Pampa), Vidal (Santa Cruz), Figueroa (Neuquén), and Weretilneck (Río Negro) convened to join forces against Buenos Aires

The Governors of Argentina's Patagonian provinces said Sunday that they would cut oil and gas output starting Wednesday if Chubut's funds are not wired by then from the federal administration of President Javier Milei. The announcement was made after Governors Ignacio Torres (Chubut), Gustavo Melella (Tierra del Fuego), Sergio Ziliotto (La Pampa), Claudio Vidal (Santa Cruz), Rolando Figueroa (Neuquén), and Alberto Weretilneck (Río Negro) convened to join forces.

Torres also denounced that Presidential Advisor Santiago Caputo had threatened to “take the tanks to the [social] networks if you do not stop.”

Chubut's Lieutenant Governor Gustavo Menna accused Economy Minister Luis Toto Caputo of “lying shamelessly” after claiming that the province had not requested any debt cancellation with the Nation and insisted there had been no answer from Buenos Aires to those petitions in a move “to financially suffocate” the district.

“The minister is blatantly lying. On December 15, 2023, the Government of Chubut requested to refinance the December and January/24 installments of the FFDP, in order to improve the maturity curve,” Menna wrote on X and published images of the notes issued by his government.

Interior Minister Guillermo Francos underlined that the Governor of Chubut “has no capacity” to cut the supply of gas and oil as he threatened last Friday, “unless he does it by force,” which would constitute an “illegal act.”

“A reaction was generated by the governor of Chubut because a share of a debt that the province owes to the Nation was withheld. This trust fund for the renewal of the provinces ends in February next year and the debts must be paid,” Francos explained in a radio interview. It is a matter of “respecting the rules and abiding by the law,” he went on.

Milei said from Washington DC that the governors “do not want to make the adjustment” the country needs and dubbed Torres “a poor boy who does not see it.”

“I come from an international convention, I come from playing in the Champions League final, it's not worth arguing with the little ones,” Milei added after participating in the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on the sides of which he met with former US President Donald Trump.

“Poor thing, Nachito [nickname for Ignacio], he is a poor boy who doesn't see it. He can't even read a contract. He is very intellectually precarious,” Milei stressed while underlining that the governors do not want to ”give up their caste privileges.”

“Chubut spends very heavily on advertising, on festivals, lawmakers increased their salaries,” he elaborated.