The move by Argentina to nationalize Spanish owned YPF is making lots of international waves. The US has already complained to WTO about import limits and is on record that it will protest any move to nationalize the YPF assets – the topic was among items discussed in the Latin Americal Summit in Colombia recently.
Argentina long know as credit junkie who’s financial position is always a challenge, but now it is having massive internal problems as the Default Risk surges to critical levels from years of restructuring and being unable to access capital markets have it hitting an “irrational wall again” and desparate moves as motivation for the privatization move.
Privatization will ultimately be a lead life-raft for Argentina since it guarantees it will introduce a irrecoverable defection from past friends-with-benefits partners in the global community and hit the next G-20 meeting/IMF members more strongly that it has the LA Summit in Colombia – since there isnt enough money to address EU & Argentian crisis at same time.
Since Argentina YPF refineries make mostly anode/calcinable grade petcoke ….. its going to add fair amount fear premium to price GPC / CPC from it as well.