The government launched the Total Privatization of Public Company Argentina SA (ENARSA)created at the end of 2004 by Kirchnerism with the objective that the National State had more and more intervention throughout the value chain of the energy sector, from production to transport, marketing and distribution of electricity and natural gas.
However, with regulatory frameworks designed in the 1990s, during the presidency of Carlos Menem, and with concessions between 35 and 99 years for the companies providing public services very expensive to reverse, Kirchnerism used Enarsa as a “witness” company in energy markets.
Among them, the thermoelectric and hydroelectric generation, the energetic public work such as the Argentine Northeast (GNEA) gas pipeline and former President Néstor Kirchner Gas pipeline Gas imports Through Bolivia, Chile and by ships (Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG).
First, the Government will advance with the sale of the Aarsa shares in Transgerthat the value assigned by the market in the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange (BCBA) is equivalent to some 200 million dollars. Transener is to obtain an increase in rates due to the quinquenal tariff (RQT) review, which will establish a period of 5 years of regulatory standardization and that will improve its investment prospects.
In 2024, Transener achieved a consolidated Ebitda (gross profitability of the operation) for $ 151,311 million -more than US $ 150 million -and a net accounting gain of $ 70,242 million -more than US $ 70 million – for the tariff recomposition that took place as of February last year.
Meanwhile, The total of ENARSA, which has 320 employees had a profit – financial support – of $ 475,415.4 milliona result inflated by the injection of funds -subsidios- of the National State for $ 1,460,198.2 million ($ 1.46 billion) to pay gas subsidies. Without those transfers of the Ministry of Economy, it would have had a deficit of $ 984,782.8 million, even despite the income given by the operation of the Muerta Vaca Gas Pipeline.
According to Juan José Carbajalesdirector of the consultant Paspartuformer Undersecretary of Hydrocarbons and former General Manager of ENARSA, The official decision of privatization is “purely ideological, with collection dyes”since if the company is deficit it is because of the political decision to channel there the gas import subsidies.
The state company manages and manages multiple relevant assets for the energy sector, such as:
“All this does it reasonably efficiently and as an executing arm of public policies, without hindering energy markets (on the contrary, it often does the ‘dirty work’ that no one, nor YPF, wants to do. This does not mean that its management should not be submitted to high standards of corporate governance (principles of efficiency, transparency, value generation, compliance), but here it is decided by the sale and it does not improve the sale and it does not improve the sale. Ideological vision of the subsidiary role of the State in the economy. The recipe for the 1990s that Macri’s first half could not complete and the government of Alberto and Cristina Fernández did not know how to shield and strengthen“Carbajales criticized.