UPDATE: Arg/ Spain/ China Drama: Argentina pushes on with YPF expropriation

The saga continues. Read more by clicking the link below to access the full story direct from Reuters

(Reuters) – Argentine lawmakers took their first step toward nationalizing the country’s No. 1 oil company on Wednesday when a Senate committee agreed on the outline of a bill to put YPF under state control.

President Cristina Fernandez unveiled plans on Monday to seize a 51 percent controlling stake in YPF from Spain’s Repsol (REP.MC), sparking a chorus of condemnation from Madrid to Washington. Trade partners, already disgruntled by protectionist measures adopted by Buenos Aires, warned the move could hobble private investment in Latin America’s No. 3 economy.

Click here to read the article in its entirety direct from Reuters

FT reports Argentina swoop scuppers China oil deal

To respect the high quality journalism produced by the Financial Times I will honor their request not to copy and paste their content.

However click here to read about the soap opera that has become Sinopec of China’s attempt to buy 57% of Repsol of Spain, stake in Argentina’s oil company YPF (Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales) before it was nationalized by Buenos Aires.

China’s Sinopec Group, Spain’s Repsol Discuss Business

China Petrochemical Corp. and Repsol YPF SA, Spain’s largest oil company, are in talks on joint ventures around the world after the Chinese refiner invested $7.1 billion in a Repsol unit in Latin America last year.

The companies agreed to set up working groups to examine new business opportunities following the acquisition of a 40 percent stake in Repsol’s Brazilian unit by Sinopec Group, as China Petrochemical is known, the Madrid-based oil producer said in a statement yesterday.

“There are significant synergies between Repsol and Sinopec, and the relationship between both companies is ideal to continue reinforcing our alliance worldwide in new business areas,” Repsol Chairman Antonio Brufau said in the statement, without elaborating. Huang Wensheng, the Beijing-based spokesman for Sinopec Group, couldn’t be immediately reached by telephone for comment today.

[...] Click here to read the full article direct from Bloomberg

Spainish oil giant Repsol makes BIG nat gas discovery in Argentina

Img courtesy of Wikicommons

Repsol YPF SA, Spain’s largest oil company, found 4.5 trillion cubic feet of unconventional natural gas in Argentina, the country’s largest discovery in 35 years.

Repsol found so-called tight gas reserves at the Loma La Lata area in the Patagonian province of Neuquen after its YPF unit drilled four exploratory wells in the region, according to a statement from Madrid-based Repsol today. The company also said that it discovered so-called shale gas in the province.

Crude output at YPF, the biggest Argentina-based company by market value, climbed in the first nine months of the year for the first time since 2003 as Chief Executive Officer Sebastian Eskenazi seeks to grow in Argentina and neighboring markets. The company plans to invest as much as $3.5 billion a year in countries such as Brazil and Colombia as Argentine output slows.

Click here to read the full article, direct from Bloomberg

Sinopec to Invest $7.1 Billion in Repsol’s Brazil Unit

China Petrochemical Corp., the country’s second-largest oil and gas producer, will invest $7.1 billion in Repsol YPF SA’s Brazilian unit as the Spanish oil company raises funds to develop offshore projects.

Sinopec Group, as the company is known, will buy new shares in the Brazilian unit and will hold 40 percent of that division after the capital increase, Madrid-based Repsol said today in a statement. Shares in Repsol, which previously planned an initial public offering of the unit, jumped to a two-year high.

The acquisition is the second-largest overseas purchase by a Chinese company as the world’s biggest energy consumer snaps up fields to meet surging demand. Repsol has stakes in blocks in Brazil’s Santos and Espirito Santo basins and plans to invest as much as $14 billion there through 2019. It estimates the Guara and Carioca fields may hold as much as 3 billion barrels.

… Continue reading here direct from Bloomberg

South American Cocaine??? Spain continues to “deal gold,” as it has since the 16th century

To realize why I titled this post the way I did, you must for your own good watch this Reuters video which gives a good outline of the gold market to the very end.  Anyone who has ever walked the streets of Madrid or Barcelona between 1995-2010, knows the image of a Peruvian/ Bolivian/ other South Americans with big card board signs which say : “we buy and sell gold/silver.”

Well, like the Japanese, Spain is also inventing machines/ robots to do the work– the work being, the exchange/ commerce of gold bars.

For the record I know very little about the machine and welcome clarification from any reader.  However, the fact that Reuters mentions Spain as the first country to do this, makes me think back to the Spanish history lessons I learned from my mother and grandmother growing up as a Peruvian-American in NYC–which are of the same yolk as the history lessons taught to US-Americans about the British/ French in North American schools.

I had to learn this “Iberian” history from my family, because the US public school system gives two $h!ts about the fact that more than half the American CONTINENT (singular) was not actually colonized by English speakers.

Good evening to all from Shanghai.

Spain wins the World Cup

A tip of the hat to the Dutch who played a valiant game and who also deserve a chance to hold the cup one day… just not today it seems.  It is Spain’s turn and as this video clearly shows, Spain is one jubilant country at the moment– economic and political woes aside.