Can Argentina Capitalize On Its Vast Shale Reserves?

Argentina, once a regional energy leader, is now better known for financial busts and bombastic politicians than hydrocarbons prospects. Still, with a resource potential both vast and untapped, the nation has never been far from energy investors’ minds. The question today is just how much Argentina is willing to change and how this plays into a low oil price environment that is already negatively impacting investment elsewhere.

Argentina’s deliberate efforts to appease some of its international creditors, combined with an overhaul of the nation’s hydrocarbons framework have the potential to lure foreign investors back. The promise of a change of government– and potentially a more market-friendly approach – later this year should add to the country’s appeal.

Argentina's President Fends Off Challenges from the Intelligence Service

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced Jan. 26 that she would reform her country's civilian intelligence organization, the Intelligence Secretariat (SI). Soon after, the office of the president said it would submit a draft law to reform the SI to the Senate on Feb. 3. In addition to changing the organization's name to the Federal Intelligence Agency, the reform is expected to significantly weaken the SI by limiting its ability to gather signals intelligence, revealing a wider political dispute.

Fernandez's motivations for reforming the SI are not completely clear, but concerns that criminal charges could be brought against her and other members of the government once they leave office might have been a factor. Moreover, though the reform appears to be immediately motivated by concerns over the SI's loyalty to Fernandez, it may significantly affect how the Argentine security apparatus functions long after her term in office ends.

Falkland Islanders to hold referendum on their future March 10-11

The Falkland Islands government has scheduled a referendum on the islands’ political status and arranged for outside observers to show the world that it is free and fair.

Argentines claim British forces stole the territory from them 180 years ago and have ruled it as a colony ever since.

Britain, Argentina sparring again over the Falklands

More than 30 years after Argentina’s unsuccessful invasion of the Falkland Islands, a fresh war of words has broken out over the sovereignty of the British territory, a rocky archipelago more than 8,000 miles from London but harboring outsize importance to both countries.

View Photo Gallery — An ad taken out by British tabloid newspaper The Sun that defends Britain's right to govern the Falkland Islands is set on fire during a protest by left-wing activists at the Buenos Aires cruise terminal on Jan. 4, 2013. Here’s a look back at Argentina’s previous grasps for the Falklands.

The latest bout of controversy erupted after Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner issued a scathing letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron, which also ran as an open note to the British public on Thursday in London’s Guardian newspaper. She demanded negotiations to hand over the islands, insisting Britain was in violation of a 1960 U.N. resolution seeking to “end colonialism in all its forms and manifestations.”

Argentina’s Pan American Energy to spend $3.4 billion on natural gas work in 2013-2017

Argentina’s Pan American Energy says it will spend $3.4 billion on natural gas exploration and output in the country over the next five years.

A statement issued Friday says the company struck a deal with the Argentine government to boost the price it will get for natural gas to $7.5 per million British thermal units.

Argentina playing last cards in court battle with bondholders

 

Argentina will make a last-ditch attempt this week to stall a U.S. court ruling that has shaken the nation's strategy to put a 2002 debt crisis behind it and fueled fears of a fresh default.

A decade since it staged the biggest sovereign default in history,Argentina faces a stark choice between depositing $1.3 billion before December 15 to pay "holdout" creditors who rejected two debt restructurings, or jeopardizing payments to all its bondholders.

About 93 percent of bondholders agreed in 2005 and 2010 to swap defaulted debt from the 2002 default for new paper at a steep discount.

Why Argentina is now paying for its dangerously successful economic story | Jayati Ghosh and Matías Vernengo

'Elliott Capital Management, a vulture fund owned by Paul Singer (pictured), has demanded payment in full.' Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

A vulture fund has won a court bid to force Argentina to repay debt, after the nation rejected austerity as a way out of crisis

Argentina is in the news again. The country that successfully managed an external debt restructuring after a major financial crisis in 2001-02, and eschewed the standard austerity package to benefit from a remarkable economic recovery, is being attacked by a combination of court rulings and aggressive moves in financial markets.

BBC: Argentina ship in Ghana seized over loans default

An Argentine naval ship has been seized in Ghana at the request of investors who lost out when Argentina defaulted on its loans in 2001.

The Libertad, a training ship on a tour of Africa, was prevented from leaving Ghana by court order on Wednesday.

Argentina's foreign ministry condemned the move as "a stunt" pulled by "vulture funds" which contravenes the Geneva Convention.

It said it had contacted Ghanaian authorities in order to free the ship.