In the context of the CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) crisis due to the changes in tariffs and selling prices, the Secretary General of the Federation of Energy Workers (FETERA), José Rigane, rejected a new rate hike (on top of the 31 percent increase previously done) and said that “it is a very severe blow to the economy of these sectors.”
“Fuel prices are going down all around the world, and here they don’t stop rising. First it was gasoline and diesel, and now it’s also compressed natural gas. Workers always pay for austerity,” said Rigane and stressed that it shows “there is a very clear policy which doesn’t see gas as a human right, subordinating it to market rules.”
“This is very worrying for taxi drivers, remiseros, freighters and travelers,” Rigane added and also called for “a responsible reaction of people to prevent this situation from continuing to happen.”
In this regard, the Deputy Secretary General of the CTA Autónoma said that “the energy policy in our country is based on the objective of benefiting oil companies with a subsidy for the local barrel which pays more than twice the international real value of it, to which we should add the impact on consumers’ pockets and the decrease in sales at the service stations.”
The union leader also said that “oil workers cannot fall into the trap of being functional to multinationals which threaten with redundancies and the deactivation of oil wells in order to obtain even higher levels of profit.”
“In Argentina we pay the most expensive fuels in the world”
Rigane noted that in August the level of overall consumption fell 10 percent, and a further increase in liquid fuels will cause inflation to soar, despite the fact that in Argentina “we pay the world’s most expensive gasoline.”
According to Rigane, “while internationally the price of the barrel of oil is around $ 40, in Argentina the local price is decoupled from the international price.”
“Therefore, we Argentines, all of us, subsidize the oil companies by having to fill the fuel tank with increasingly expensive gasoline.”
In addition, the trade unionist stated that the CTA Autónoma, along with FETERA and the MORENO Group “have been denouncing that oil companies in Argentina are making millions in profits” and stressed that “even the state-owned YPF is managed with the same commercial and business logic like any other of the 10 major oil companies operating in our territory.”
Finally, he said that “energy is an irreplaceable social good and as long as it is considered as a commodity we will never reach both fuel and gas self-sufficiency.” Rigane also considered that “despite the price reduction decided by the Government some time ago, the price of gas at wellhead remains extremely high compared to other countries in the region.”
