June 14, 2023, 3:30 PM
June 14, 2023, 3:30 PM
After more than one specialist from the hydrocarbons sector spread the word about the stoppage of the Ammonia and Urea Plant (PAU), attributing the reason to the destination of the volumes of gas used by the petrochemical complex to cover the demand of Argentina in winter, the YPFB National Vice President of Operations, Luciano Montellano, came forward to inform that the cessation of operations of the plant responds to a scheduled maintenance plan that will last for 45 days, starting on the 17th of this month.
“The scheduled activity was carried out within the framework of a long-term, five-year strategic maintenance plan, and it was planned last year,” said the executive of the state oil company, by complementing that said work will allow the plant to be in the best operating conditions for the next stage of production.
Montellano expressed that considering that the stoppage of the plant will be extended for 45 days, it has been programmed and managed to obtain a sufficient stock of urea to cover the national demand and the requirement of the export markets of said fertilizer while the maintenance lasts. plant schedule.
“Once the operation is resumed, the plant will be able to work at its maximum production capacity, just to meet the demands of producers during the winter and summer sowing period and in which both demand and price rise. . The maintenance plan is part of a strategy that makes it possible to take better advantage of both the scope and the period in which it will be carried out. In other words, the stoppage is planned in a period in which, although demand and price are affected because it is an agro-industrial business, this period is used to leave the plant in optimal conditions for the planting season and the complex’s highest production. ”, Montellano noted.
He inferred that coincidentally the period of paralysis of the PAU is when natural gas achieves a very particular demand, as well as an exceptional price, for export during the winter. “That opportunity coincides to do maintenance at the plant,” said Montellano.
Judging by the economist Gonzalo Chávez, the paralysis of the PAU occurs to meet the growing demand for natural gas in Argentina in winter and It responds to a desperate strategy by the Government to attract foreign currency to the country and thus ‘soften’ the problem of a shortage of dollars in the country.
