Argentina inaugurates Nestor Kirchner gas pipeline, projected to save $4.2 billion in imports a year

Last edited Sun Jul 9, 2023, 05:40 PM - Edit history (2)

Argentine President Alberto Fernández inaugurated the 354-mile Néstor Kirchner Gas Pipeline (GPNK) this Sunday in the Pampas town of Salliqueló - described by the president as "the most important public work in the last 40 years" and "a crucial step toward our economic independence."

The $2.5-billion pipeline, named in honor of former President Néstor Kirchner, is projected to save the country's hard currency reserves - depleted by foreign debt payments and a record drought - some $4.2 billion in imports next year alone, as well as ease the need for costly utility subsidies.

Built in a record eight months, the pipeline, with a daily capacity of 21 million m³ of gas, connects the country's Vaca Muerta shale oil and gas formation to the Neuba II gas pipeline - which supplies the Buenos Aires metro area of over 15 million people.

Vaca Muerta, the world's third-largest unconventional oil and gas formation, already supplies 42% of the country's gas and 46% of its oil. Argentina is the world's 18th-largest gas consumer, and ranks 30th in oil consumption.

A pipeline to unity?

The president was joined by Vice President Cristina Kirchner and Economy Minister Sergio Massa - the first time all three appeared together since the opening of Congressional sessions (akin to a State of the Union) on March 1.

Vice President Kirchner, whose endorsement of Fernández - and joining him in a center-left ticket - was decisive in his 2019 defeat of right-wing incumbent Mauricio Macri, had been distanced from the president since his March 2022 agreement to refinance the record, $45 billion IMF bailout granted in 2018 to Macri - reportedly under pressure from then-President Donald Trump.

Their joint appearance with the pragmatic Massa may help boost Massa's presidential bid this year.

Polling already shows Massa besting his primary rival, left-wing populist Juan Grabois, by around 7-to-1 - but fears remain among the ruling coalition of a repeat of the 2021 mid-terms, when the right-wing Together for Change (JxC) opposition was handed a victory by an estimated 4 million largely pro-Kirchner voters who sat the election out.

The same polling shows Massa's center-left Union for the Homeland (UP) in a statistical tie with the increasingly radicalized JxC - whose front-runner, Macri-era Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, has pledged to "dynamite the Kirchnerist economic order" through a mix of shock devaluation, currency deregulation and sharp budget cuts critics liken to the country's 2001 collapse (during which Bullrich was Labor Minister).

At: https://www-france24-com.translate.goog/es/minuto-a-minuto/20230709-argentina-inaugura-gasoducto-clave-para-el-shale-gas-de-vaca-muerta?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Argentine President Alberto Fernández and Vice President Cristina Kirchner turn the opening valve on the Néstor Kirchner Gas Pipeline, flanked by (from left) Cabinet Chief Agustín Rossi, Economy Minister Sergio Massa, Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof, and ENARSA President Agustín Gerez.

The pipeline the pipeline connects the country's Vaca Muerta shale oil and gas formation to the Buenos Aires metro area of over 15 million people - thus projected to save the hard currency-strapped country some $4.2 billion in gas imports next year alone.