From investment risk to pariah state?

摘要

On the first anniversary of the Argentine government's expropriation of 51% of the share capital of former state oil company and Repsol subsidiary YPF (see Petroleum Review, June 2012), national and international media commented on YPF's falling profits, reserves and production. Meanwhile, a more telling event was underway on the other side of the border, in Chile. Canadian petrochemical producer Methanex, which since 1998 had invested over $1.3bn in methanol production plants near Punta Arenas in southern Chile, announced that it was transferring a second methanol plant from Chile to the US Gulf coast at Geismar, Louisiana. Its decision was driven by the prospect of cheap gas supplies from the northern Louisiana Haynesville Shale.