OIL IMPORTS BY ARGENTINA

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27094, 18 July 1953, Page 2

OIL IMPORTS BY ARGENTINA

VENEZUELAN SUPPLY SOUGHT

INDEPENDENCE FROM BRITAIN WANTED

(From a Reuter Correspondent.) BEUNOS AIRES.

Efforts by Argentina to free herself from her dependence on British sources for most of her petroleum imports are reported. The reason is that she is having to go short of meat, her traditional diet, to pay for oil. After Persia's nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951, feelers put out in Teheran by the Argentine Minister came to nothing. The explanation of this failure was thought to be two-fold—the shortage of ships to carry the 5.000,000 tons of crude and fuel oil which Argentina imports every year, and an understandable desire not to give offence to British suppliers as long as she is dependent on them.

Recently a report from Caracas stated that the Argentine Ambassador in Venezuela (Mr Carlos Dominguez) had conferred with the Venezuelan President (Colonel Marcos Perez Jimenez) on the subject of oil. Argentina, the report said, is third on the list of countries getting oil from Venezuela, but has to import it through British companies under the British-Argentine “meat for oil” barter. Now she would prefer to buy Venezuelan oil direct and pay for it not with meat but with wheat.

British companies, under the annual trade agreements signed here, usually after much bickering over meat prices, supply Argentina annually with about 2.000,000 tons each of crude and fuel oil and a smaller quantity of aviation spirits and lubricants. The total value of these is about £40,000,000. To pay' for this, Argentina sends to Britain a large quantity of meat, mostly beef. With a rapidly expanding population eating more and more meat, the country in recent years has been hard put to it to maintain her exports to Britain and recently she has done so only by imposing a mild form of rationing at home. This year, even with a meatless Friday and sporadic shortages on other days, she is behind schedule in her shipments. A direct exchange of wheat for Venezuelan oil would accordingly go a long way towards relieving this now chronic problem. New Oilfield

Another, and perhaps longer term, solution lies in the discovery of a new and important oilfield in the northern province of Salta. A new well there is credited with a daily yield of 500 cubic metres of oil, which leads to the hope that Salta will eventually outstrip Commodoro Rivadavia in Patagonia as the principal local source of petroleum.

President Peron’s second five-vear Plan aims at raising domestic output tons, of which about 3.000,000 tons come from Commodoro Rivadavia, to 6,000,000 tons in 1957 Obviously, most, if not all, of this increase will be sought in Salta. If the plan’s target is met. Argentina should be nearly selfsufficient in oil in four years’ time. In the meantime, she will logically seek to tan other sources than the bee rnating British. Her latest efforts in Caracas are therefore being watched here with much interest