Permits that report sovereignty | With the downstream of Camb …

The national government has opened a new front with its general policy claiming the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands
when awarded, last May, ten offshore oil exploration areas, including five to 150 km from the Malvinas Islands, to the companies Tullow Oil and Equinor, the antecedents binding them to the government kelper and to the 39, exploitation of hydrocarbons without authorization from Argentina. These links were denounced by both the Fuegian municipality of Rio Grande, which obtained a recent and disputed decision.
against in first instance, and by the bloc of deputies of the Front for the victory, that introduced a bill to derogate permissions. In both cases, reference is also made to the entire tendering process, which resulted in the concessioning of 18 exploitation zones, in the absence of environmental impact studies.

The FpV and amparo block project presented by the Municipality of Rio Grande – accompanied by the Rio Grande Deliberation Council, war veterans, tanker union and other unions – is planning to issue licenses to companies related to the kelper government's violators of the Constitution and international resolutions on sovereignty and the 26659 law on the exploitation of hydrocarbons, which punishes companies that carry out these tasks without the authorization of the government Argentine in the area illegally occupied by Great Britain.

The interrogation falls under decree 872/18, by which the government issued a call for tenders for the exploration of offshore gas and oil areas located in the basins Argentina Norte, Austral and Malvinas. Oeste, located only 150 from the boundary with the Malvinas Islands. , for a total area of ​​200 000 square kilometers and Resolution 276/2019
the Energy Secretariat, which confirmed the granting of 18 exploration zones to allow companies to litigate in foreign courts.

The amparo, rejected the first time last week and under appeal by the Rio Grande government, warns against the issuance of permits to Tullow Oil, the British capital, and Equinor, Norwegian capital, according to a report of Observatory of Energy, Technology and Infrastructure for Development (Oetec)
.

With respect to Tullow Oil, it is noted that it is a British oil company, specialized in offshore, which operated until 2007 in seven exploration licenses granted by the colonial government of the island in the southern and eastern basins of Malvina, which she then sold to Falklands Oil and Gas, one of the first companies denounced by the Argentine government in 2015 by law 26659, subsequently absorbed by Rockhopper Exploration, which currently operates under Kelper's license.

As confirmed by this newspaper, the Argentine Foreign Ministry acknowledges that the British capital company has been involved in operations authorized by the Kelper government, but claims that it has abandoned them before the amendments adopt the Hydrocarbons Act in 2013, which is why You can apply retroactively. "The government's recognition of the Tullow Oil situation is very important, but it is a misleading argument about the hydrocarbons law." Prior to the amendment of the regulation, Resolution 407 of the Energy Secretariat was in force. who established the same criteria, "he explained to PageI12 the deputy and vice-president of the Committee on Foreign Relations and Worship, Guillermo Carmona.

Tullow Oil obtained three exploration licenses in the Malvinas Oeste Basin, a little over 100 kilometers from the islands, but also a short distance from the area where it operated until 2007 with the Kelper permit. "We are no longer talking about the gravity of the award of a British oil zone in the sea of ​​Argentina, but to grant sovereign rights over an area located in the same geological formation as that offered by the reapers south of the Falklands ", warns the FpV bloc in the project of abrogation of the permits granted by the resolution of May last.

In this sense, the deputies emphasize that "the price will consolidate the British economic position to the Malvinas and, consequently, in the South Atlantic and in the Argentine Antarctic", because the exploratory activity led by Tullow and Equinor "will have an impact" on the promotion and sustainability of UK-controlled basins.

In the case of Equinor, the licenses obtained in the Malvinas Oeste Basin were two. According to the report from Oetec, the Norwegian-owned company counts Anne Drinkwater, a former adviser to Tullow and the Kelper Government on the exploitation of hydrocarbons within its board of directors. The observatory calls it "the intellectual and material author of the 2013-2018 roadmap for offshore development around the Falklands".

"Even if they do not violate the Hydrocarbons Law, which we reject en bloc, we can consider that the project still has an irrefutable foundation, namely the absence of environmental impact studies before the granting of prospecting licenses. ", emphasized Carmona.

The danger of an environmental impact of the exploration processes affecting the flora, fauna and marine resources of the basin coincided between the FpV project and the amparo presented by the Rio Grande government. In this sense, the federal prosecutor Marcelo Rapoport had accompanied the request for a precautionary measure aimed at limiting the adjudication, which was also rejected by the federal judge of Rio Grande Mariel Borruto in its decision of 4 June, considering that studies "must be done 20 or 30 days" before the start of exploration work, when companies will receive confirmation of allocations in July.

In the case of Chancellor Faurie, in statements on FM La Isla radio, he decided to trust foreign companies to preserve the resources of the Argentine sea: "I do not doubt that companies of this size are companies of tradition, important codes in the field of environmental protection which obliges them to remain vigilant in the face of fortuitous events likely to cause damages to the environment ".

Jorge Arguello, Secretary of the Representation for the Falklands issue of Tierra del Fuego, said that the province was considering a new court presentation, before the price confirmation deadline, which highlights the absence environmental impact studies designed to preserve the natural resources of the basin. In addition, Arguello added to critics for "the situation on the sidelines of the exclusion zone" and said that "this situation is very serious politically and needs to be re-examined".

Arguello, in dialogue with PageI12, noted the seriousness of the permits granted as president Mauricio Macri "tacitly recognizes the unilateral maritime boundary established by the United Kingdom in 1990". The map drawn up by Oetec, on the basis of the information provided by resolution 267, shows that the tender area is delimited by the "Falkland Islands Conservation Area".

"We are faced with the imminent situation of granting sovereign rights to a company that has violated the sovereignty of Argentina, the National Constitution and the United Nations resolutions concerning the sovereignty dispute," he said. said the FpV block project, which requires "The executive must take the measures that are required to protect our legitimate and irrevocable rights over the Malvinas Islands and the surrounding maritime areas, as well as our non-renewable resources. "