为什么阿根廷渴望与Repsol解决其财务纠纷

有一次，阿根廷似乎遵循传统脚本，以解决与外国投资者的争议。克里斯蒂纳·菲尔纳尔德·德基恩纳的遗传政府已达到暂定申办，支付50亿美元的西班牙能源公司Repsol，以征用阿根廷石油和天然气公司（见）Argentina Oil Shale Caught in Politics, Litigation“）。在2012年4月，塞尔斯宣布发现世界上最大的页岩气体和石油存款之一的缉获情况很快，在西巴塔哥尼亚哈维拉·穆伦塔。

但与阿根廷一样，良好的印花熊密切检查。11月26日，阿根廷和西班牙政府和西班牙各国政府和ypf和Repsol代表之间的拟议协议在布宜诺斯艾利斯敲响，并在两天后由Repsol董事会批准。但结算仍然需要最终协议如何支付金钱。考虑到阿根廷与投资者的动荡记录，这可能是一个大障碍。

根据暂定协议的条款，阿根廷将支付50亿美元的十年主权债券，以美元计价而不是快速融化的比索。但精确的细节 - 债券将携带的利率是什么，以及将有哪些担保 - 仍有待确定。阿根廷现有的十年美元债券贸易，产量约为11％，几乎肯定高于政府愿意支付。西班牙语新闻报道已经引用了8％至9％的优惠券的谈话。此外，分析人士表示，Repsol坚持认为，债券携带超过阿根廷政府的充分信仰和信贷。“显然，Repsol需要保证这些债券将在伦敦的Sanford C.Bernstein石油分析师Iain Pyle说，这些债券将以市场价值交易。”

For Repsol, the deal promises to deliver less than half the $10.5 billion it had sought from Argentina. That figure was based on the valuation formula used by the Argentinean government when it sold YPF to Repsol in 1999. Why is the company prepared to accept less? Because of pressure from two of its largest shareholders: CaixaBank, the big Barcelona-based bank with a 12.02 percent stake, and Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, which holds 9.34 percent.

对于Pemex和Caixabank，在流动资产中的付款是一种选择手中鸟的案例。在偿还投资者时，阿根廷非常紧张。它违反了2001年的450亿美元的外债，并且继续抵制持盟债券持有人的诉讼，今年早些时候对美国最高法院提出上诉。

Nonetheless, tensions are evident between Repsol chairman and CEO Antonio Brufau Niubó, who wanted more compensation from Argentina, and the company’s big shareholders. Pemex chief executive Emilio Lozoya Austin and CaixaBank chairman Isidro Fainé Casas both showed up for negotiations in Buenos Aires with YPF CEO Miguel Galuccio and Argentinean economy minister Axel Kicillof. Brufau stayed in Madrid and had three of his executives accompany Spain’s minister of industry, energy and tourism, José Manuel Soria, to Argentina.

The expropriation of YPF clearly lit a fire under Repsol. The company has been performing well lately, and the big shareholders don’t want it to lose focus. Repsol plans to raise production from the current 344,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day to 500,000 barrels by the end of 2016, thanks to new projects in Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico. Those finds have raised Repsol’s reserve replacement ratio from just 35 percent in 2007 to 120 percent this year – one of the best levels in the industry.

To help bring the new reserves onstream, Repsol has beefed up financially by selling its liquefied natural gas business to Royal Dutch Shell in February for $4.4 billion in cash. As part of the deal, Shell also agreed to assume $2.3 billion in leases and debt.

与此同时，阿根廷，也有自己拥抱与Repsol的贸易，尽管它将首选灭绝灭绝，例如在Vaca Muerta提供一个未开发的特许权给西班牙公司。

The Fernández government’s most immediate consideration was a legal one. Repsol has several lawsuits pending over the YPF seizure that threaten to impede Argentina’s ability to develop its energy resources. The Spanish company has sued Chevron in Spain and the U.S. for its Vaca Muerta joint venture with YPF. Repsol has also petitioned the World Bank’s arbitration body to stop YPF from developing Vaca Muerta.

如果希望鼓励其他外国投资能够帮助发展其页岩资源，阿根廷需要结束这些法律纠纷。“他们希望西方石油专业觉得阿根廷是一个安全的商业的地方，投资像Vaca Muerta这样的项目，”Pyle说。“我认为这笔交易不会改变人们对阿根廷的基本看法。但它至少消除了立即的法律威胁。“

在宣布11月26日，阿根廷的Kicill重点强调，“双方将停止目前正在进行的法律诉讼。”

在长期内，阿根廷必须确保它可以满足国内能源需求，并降低昂贵的燃料进口。邻近邻国的燃气出口国为2006年，预计今年的进口石油和天然气将花费80亿美元。

Vaca Muerta伸出改变的承诺Argentina into a major energy player. The field has the second-largest shale gas and fourth-largest shale oil reserves in the world, according to estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Thus far, the only significant project in the region is a $1.24 billion joint venture between YPF and Chevron to drill 120 wells. Industry experts say it will take another decade and an additional $65 billion to raise production in Vaca Muerta to the levels of Eagle Ford, the southern Texas shale formation to which the Argentinean find is most often compared. “Given Argentina’s track record, it is hard at this stage to imagine attracting such high investment,” says Laura Atkins, director of upstream petroleum research at Hart Energy, a Houston-based research company.

Fernández has other reasons to settle, too. With annual inflation running close to 25 percent — more than twice the official figure, which the International Monetary Fund rejected as inaccurate in an unprecedented censure motion earlier this year — Fernández’s candidates were routed in congressional primaries in August, dashing any hopes she had for amending the constitution to allow her to run for a third presidential term in 2015. She is viewed not only as a lame duck but also an ailing one, after a month spent recovering from brain surgery in October to stop bleeding from an unspecified head injury.

Now even her bitterest political opponents are conceding that Fernández and her cabinet deserve credit for a deal that encourages at least some foreign investment in the energy sector. “They have achieved an opening by repairing the disaster they caused with YPF,” Mauricio Macri, mayor of Buenos Aires and probable presidential candidate for the opposition in the next elections, told the popular radio station Tierra de Locos (Land of the Insane).

但许多专家表示，它将采取卫生投资气候 - 包括对石油和天然气和钻井设备的进口障碍的提升国内价格控制 - 提高国家的能源前景。“Most oil and gas companies and financial institutions will wait and see what happens with the next government’s economic and energy policies before deciding how much money to lend or invest in Argentina,” predicts Daniel Montamat, ex-president (1987–’89) of YPF and a former energy secretary who now heads own energy consulting firm in Buenos Aires.

Read more: “Latin America at Forefront of Oil Shale Shake-up”