The American oil company
ExxonMobil
, one of the largest in the world,
is accelerating its exit from Argentina and wants $1 billion in cash
to sell its assets.
The operation is carried out by the investment bank Jefferies Group.
Exxon opened the divestment process last year and received offers from almost a dozen local and multinational oil companies in February.
They are the state-owned
YPF, PAE
(Bulgheroni family),
Tecpetrol
(Paolo Rocca),
Pampa Energía
(Marcelo Mindlin),
Pluspetrol
(Poli and Rey families) and the Anglo-Dutch
Shell
, among others.
Vista
, directed by Miguel Galuccio -former president of YPF- was presented alongside
Geopark
, according to the
EconoJournal
portal .
And
Trafigura
could provide capital to the successful bidder.
Qatar Petroleum, another giant in the sector, owns 30% of the shares of ExxonMobil Argentina and has the right of preference over the rest, but everything seems to indicate that it would accompany the departure of the American oil company.
An interested source told
Clarín
off
the record
that there are "high chances" that the award will go to a multinational, with Shell taking the lead due to its ability to quickly finance the US$1 billion.
Most of the rest of the companies - except PAE and Pluspetrol, with greater operational liquidity - would have to take out debt to access that money, as they do not have it in cash.
Exxon's main asset in the country is the
Bajo del Choique
shale oil
field - in
Vaca Muerta
- and its associated infrastructure to evacuate production, which is currently around 6,000 to 8,000 barrels of oil per day.
Last week, the American oil company returned three
offshore
oil exploration concession permits in areas of the
West Malvinas Basin
, granted by the national State in 2019.
Together with Qatar Petroleum, Exxon did not find conclusive indications of the presence of oil and gas in those areas, where it is presumed that, as off the coasts of Africa and Brazil, Argentina
would have a million-dollar treasure hidden under the surface of the sea
.
If other companies managed to obtain better results in their seismic exploration, especially YPF and the Norwegian
Equinor
300 kilometers off the coast of Mar del Plata, Argentina could add exports of about 20 billion dollars annually starting in 2030.
Sector sources even maintain that, if the potential of offshore basins is confirmed, the cost of extraction is lower than the development of the infrastructure to export Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).
Exxon's background
ExxonMobil's presence in Argentina had been sharply reduced in 2012, when it sold the
Downstream
(refining and marketing) fuel business it had under the Esso brand, granted to PAE, which converted it into the Axion service station network.
According to
Forbes
, Exxon was the
fourth largest oil company in the world
in 2022 in terms of revenue, behind Saudi Aramco and the Chinese companies Sinopec and Petrochina, with about $390 billion, or the equivalent of more than 60% of the Gross Domestic Product ( GDP) of Argentina.
Of these firms, Sinopec also left the country a few years ago.
In 2021, Eduardo Eurnekian bought his assets through the Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC), which became strong in Santa Cruz.