Logotype of the former Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Sociedad del Estado (State Society). This image is not subject to copyright law in its country of origin (Argentina), but to trademark law. According to article 5 of Law 22362, rights over the trademark are extinct. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)First make the company unprofitable by price controls, then blackmail it by revoking its concessions, then steal it – that seems to have been the playbook of Argentina's government regarding YPF Repsol.
President Christina Fernandez-Kirchner noted in her press conference on the seizure that
Argentina will manage YPF “professionally,” Fernandez said, adding that the country is one of the few that doesn’t control its own oil.Deputy Economy Minister Axel Kicillof will help De Vido to run the company, according to Fernandez.[..]Argentina is expropriating YPF for the “public good,” a government official said in yesterday’s speech.
By this she means: Argentina is one of the few countries where the oil industry was not yet fully nationalized, as if that were a bad thing. The reality of the situation is that the high share of government control all over the world over the oil industry has created a major supply problem, as governments can not possibly 'manage oil companies professionally'. As all state-owned enterprises, nationalized oil firms are inefficient and wasteful – they are not businesses, they are bureaucracies. To wit, a bureaucrat – the deputy economy minister – will now 'help to run the company'... Continue to read
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