1. ARGENTINES VOTE IN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (The New York Times)
2. ARGENTINE PRIMARY SIGNALS TIGHT PRESIDENTIAL RACE (Financial Times.com)
3. RULING PARTY CANDIDATE SCIOLI LEADS ARGENTINE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (Reuters News)
4. NOT ON THE BALLOT, BUT ARGENTINA’S PRESIDENT HAS DOMINATED RUN-UP TO SUNDAY’S OPEN PRIMARIES (U.S. News and World Report)
5. TANGO WITH CREDITORS TAKES A TWIRL — ARGENTINE OFFICIALS INDICATE POSSIBLE THAW, BUT A SETTLEMENT ISN’T YET IN SIGHT (The Wall Street Journal)
6. MIGUEL GALUCCIO, YPF CEO: PRESIDENT FERNÁNDEZ’S OILMAN (Financial Times.com)
7. PA. MAN UNEARTHED DINOSAUR NOW A PITT PROF, HE HELPED TO FIND PATAGONIAN GIANT (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
8. A QUICK GUIDE TO ALL OF THE DIFFERENT ‘DOLLARS’ IN ARGENTINA (Business Insider.com)
9. ARGENTINA WILL EVENTUALLY HAVE TO PAY BACK SOME OF THE $5.4 BILLION IT OWES (Business Insider)
1. ARGENTINES VOTE IN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (The New York Times)
By Jonathan Gilbert
10 August 2015
BUENOS AIRES — Argentines voted to select presidential nominees on Sunday in a primary election that will gauge the nation’s desire for change after 12 years of the current president’s governing party.
That party’s candidate, Daniel Scioli, is vying to succeed President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who cannot run for a third consecutive term. Mr. Scioli is widely expected to receive the most votes of any candidate across all parties.
Partial returns were not available Sunday, and conclusive results were not expected until Monday.
Argentina switched to a primary system in 2011. Voters — not just party members or officials — now decide which candidate from each major party or alliance will run in the presidential election, which will be held on Oct. 25.
To avoid fissures in the governing Front for Victory, Mrs. Kirchner endorsed Mr. Scioli, 58, a former powerboat champion who lost his right arm in 1989 when his boat flipped during a race. After her endorsement, other party candidates withdrew.
Mr. Scioli’s main rival, Mauricio Macri, 56, was expected to easily overcome challengers within his Cambiemos, or ”Let’s Change,” alliance.
Carlos Germano, a political analyst, said that if Mr. Scioli wins about 40 percent of the vote, ”he becomes an extremely difficult figure to overcome on Oct. 25.”
Management and Fit, an Argentine polling firm, predicted this month that Mr. Scioli would win 36 percent of the vote and the Cambiemos candidates would receive a total of 31 percent. It surveyed 2,400 people nationwide, and the margin of sampling error was 2 percentage points.
Mrs. Kirchner comfortably won elections in 2007 and 2011, but discontent with her administration has increased in recent years. ”The Front for Victory is very strong, but these elections are extremely competitive, unlike anything we’ve seen for a while in Argentina,” Mr. Germano said.
To win in October without the need for a runoff, a candidate needs more than 45 percent of the vote, or 40 percent with a lead of more than 10 points. Advisers to Mr. Macri believe he is more capable than Mr. Scioli of attracting voters from beyond his base. Attracting votes from supporters of Sergio Massa, a third candidate who lost momentum after rising to prominence in midterm elections in 2013, will be crucial, analysts said.
Mr. Scioli, the governor of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina’s most populous, faces some challenges because of what are widely viewed as moves by Mrs. Kirchner to wield influence over him after she leaves office.
Still, many voters here support the governing party because they believe the country is better off today than it was in 2003 after a severe crisis plunged millions into poverty.
”The truth is that the country is fine,” said Alexia Charchabukian, 33, a jewelry seller who voted at a school in Chacarita, a gritty neighborhood here. She cited Argentina’s rising middle class and Mrs. Kirchner’s drive to expand social benefits.
Mr. Macri, who is the mayor of Buenos Aires, has gained support among voters who have voiced discontent in recent years with what they see as Mrs. Kirchner’s imperious style and other concerns, including accusations of corruption, inflation and perceptions that crime is on the rise.
”The country is not doing well,” said Patricia Caneva, 56, a private tutor of English who voted for Alejandro Bodart, a socialist. ”The first term was good, but the second has been a struggle,” she said, pointing to the high inflation and to her irritation with Mrs. Kirchner’s antagonistic tone.
The pace of growth here has slowed significantly after a boom from 2003 to 2011.
Mr. Macri has said that if he is elected he will maintain some of Mrs. Kirchner’s cornerstone policies, including child benefits, and the nationalization of an oil company and an airline. He would also strengthen public institutions, his aides said, including Argentina’s politicized judiciary and the national statistics institute, whose data has in the past been criticized by the International Monetary Fund.
Mr. Scioli is offering continuity, although his aides said he would gradually forge his own policies. He has been helped by the nationwide political machinery of the Front for Victory, while Mr. Macri has had to battle to win recognition beyond Buenos Aires.
Daniel Scioli, of the Front for Victory, voted Sunday in Buenos Aires. His party has been in power for more than a decade.
2. ARGENTINE PRIMARY SIGNALS TIGHT PRESIDENTIAL RACE (Financial Times.com)
By Benedict Mander
August 10, 2015
Argentina’s primary elections on Sunday in which all voters are obliged to vote, set the stage for a tight race in the October presidential elections that will bring an end to eight years of rule by the leftist government of President Cristina Fernández and see the country settle its long-standing fight for holdout hedge fund creditors.
With 87 per cent of the ballots counted, Daniel Scioli, the governor of Buenos Aires province backed by the ruling Peronist party, had won 36.5 per cent of the vote, while the opposition alliance led by Mauricio Macri, the mayor of the city of Buenos Aires, had gained 31.4 per cent, with 40 per cent of the ballots counted.
Argentina’s electoral system requires all voters, not just party members, to decide which candidate from each major party or coalition will run in the October 25 presidential election. As such its results are widely seen as an early look at the presidential contest’s result.
Analysts said that Sunday’s close result raised the likelihood of a second-round run-off presidential vote in November. In order to win outright, the leading candidate needs either 45 per cent of the vote, or 40 per cent with a 10 point margin over the runner-up.
Sunday’s tight result allowed each of the leading candidates to claim victory, with Mr Scioli boasting that he had won the most votes and the opposition highlighting that the majority had voted against the ruling party and wanted change as Argentines complain of a stagnant economy and high inflation.
“Argentina has found a way. It is evident that with this result there is a clear will to continue advancing towards a great future,” Mr Scioli told supporters, praising Ms Fernández and her late husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner, for whom he was vice-president. Nevertheless Mr Scioli, who chose one of Ms Fernández’s closest advisers as his running mate, added that he would “change what needs changing”.
Markets are likely to welcome the prospect of a second round, since it would be good news for the business-friendly Mr Macri, who has promised wholesale change. His top priorities include axing currency and trade controls, and reaching a quick solution with “holdout” creditors who are blocking Argentina’s access to international capital markets.
The result of a run-off would depend to a large extent on the votes of Sergio Massa, a dissident Peronist whose coalition came third in the primaries with 20.5 per cent. It remains unclear whether Mr Scioli or Mr Macri would benefit more from Mr Massa’s votes in a second round.
“Tonight an alternative has been consolidated,” Mr Macri told supporters. “We have to unite, because united we are more.”
About 32m people were eligible to vote in the elections, which were marred by heavy rain, especially around Buenos Aires, the capital. The elections will also see half of the chamber of deputies and a third of the senate renewed, as well as several provincial governors.
3. RULING PARTY CANDIDATE SCIOLI LEADS ARGENTINE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (Reuters News)
By Hugh Bronstein
10 August 2015
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Ruling party candidate Daniel Scioli was ahead in Argentina’s presidential primary on Sunday with 36.8 percent, early results showed, with voters favoring the Buenos Aires governor’s policy of gradual change after eight years of leftist government.
Scioli is in outgoing President Cristina Fernandez’s Front for Victory party and has promised to slowly modify her policies, which include heavy state control of the economy.
The presidential election, in which Fernandez is banned from running for a third consecutive term, is on Oct. 25.
The No. 2 vote-getter on Sunday was Mauricio Macri, the business-friendly mayor of the capital city whose goal is to do well enough in October to force a November run-off. He had 24.7 percent of the primary vote with 24.5 percent of ballots counted. The early results were seen as neutral for the markets.
Macri competed with two less popular members of his Cambiemos, or “Let’s Change,” coalition. Let’s Change as a whole captured 31.2 percent. Scioli ran unopposed in the Front for Victory primary.
Ignacio Labaqui, who analyses Argentina for Medley Global Advisors, said Macri’s coalition needed at least 30 percent on Sunday for him to stay in serious contention.
Each party chose its presidential candidate in the primary but, with voters free to cross party lines, Sunday’s vote served as a dry run ahead of the October election. To win outright in October, a candidate needs 45 percent of the vote or 40 percent with a 10-point margin over whoever places second.
Both Scioli and Macri are former businessmen with more orthodox policies than Fernandez, whose high public spending has drained fiscal accounts and fueled inflation while currency and trade controls slowed investment.
Macri vows to quickly free the markets. Scioli says “gradualism” is the best way to open the economy while preserving the strong social safety net weaved together by Fernandez since she first took power in 2007.
Scioli said in a speech after Sunday’s vote he would “continue the programs that need to be continued and change what needs to be changed in order to keep advancing.”
The governor has revealed few details of his program, as he treads carefully to lock in Fernandez’s left-leaning base without alienating the wider electorate.
Macri vows to scrap currency controls and grains export curbs, and to negotiate an end to the U.S. court battle with holders of non-paying sovereign bonds that has hobbled Argentina’s finances by keeping it in default.
Argentina is the world’s third-biggest soybean exporter and a major supplier of wheat to neighboring Brazil.
The bond market had been set to rally at any sign of a stronger-than-expected primary performance by Macri. But Alejo Costa at Buenos Aires investment bank Puente said the preliminary results were in line with expectations and had already been largely priced into bonds.
Fernandez’s policies have fueled one of the world’s highest inflation rates, but poor voters who have benefited from state largesse over the past eight years remain loyal to her. She could return as a presidential candidate in 2019.
Congressman Sergio Massa placed a distant third in Sunday’s primary with 12.1 percent.
Whoever is elected Argentina’s next leader will need to carefully loosen controls that Fernandez has put on Latin America’s third-biggest economy as it confronts tough trade condition, said Walter Molano, emerging markets analyst at U.S.-based BCP Securities.
4. NOT ON THE BALLOT, BUT ARGENTINA’S PRESIDENT HAS DOMINATED RUN-UP TO SUNDAY’S OPEN PRIMARIES (U.S. News and World Report)
By Peter Prengaman
August 8, 2015
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Cristina Fernandez isn’t on Sunday’s presidential primary ballot, yet the influence of Argentina’s leader is all around it.
The populist president known for fiery rhetoric and withering critiques of political opponents has been dictating the tempo of the campaign, buoyed by rising popularity despite a sluggish economy and a scandal that rocked her administration. Barred from seeking a third consecutive term, she is making clear she will wield her clout through the Oct. 25 election and possibly beyond.
Opposition candidates have gone from criticizing the spending behind Fernandez’s social welfare policies, including energy and transportation subsidies and perks for poor, single mothers, to instead talking about modifying the programs or even building on them.
“Previous presidents at this point were lame ducks. Fernandez is not,” said Maria Victoria Murillo, a professor of political science at Columbia University and an expert on Argentine politics. “She continues to be very effective.”
Sunday’s open primaries largely will be a trial run for the leading presidential candidates, who have all but won their party’s nominations. Voters also will select nominees for several governor and congressional seats. A candidate must get at least 1.5 percent of the total votes cast for that race in all the primaries to advance to the general election, effectively eliminating many minority party candidates.
The vote comes at a time when the South American nation of 41 million people is struggling. Independent economists put inflation at more than 30 percent, the Argentine peso has devalued sharply against the U.S. dollar in recent months and a long-standing dispute with a group of U.S. hedge funds has left the country shunned by foreign investment.
The major candidates have addressed these issues during heavily scripted events, but have been notably light on details about how they would solve them.
Daniel Scioli, the governor of the Buenos Aires province and a former vice president, is the governing party candidate vying to replace Fernandez. Mauricio Macri, the outgoing mayor of Buenos Aires and former president of the Boca Junior soccer club, is leading the opposition. Sergio Massa, who has held Cabinet and elective posts, is running on his own ticket after breaking with Fernandez’s political movement, known as Kirchnerismo.
Scioli is up by as many as 10 points over Macri in recent polls, a significant bump after the two spent months in a tight race. The rise partly coincides with Scioli’s June decision to name Carlos Zannini, one of Fernandez’s closest aides, as his running mate. In exchange for picking Zannini, Scioli received Fernandez’s endorsement and the two began campaigning together.
For both Scioli and Macri, the primaries provide a chance to test their strategies. If Scioli wins by a big margin, he’ll likely continue to embrace Fernandez. By contrast, if Macri does poorly, he’ll likely return to stronger criticism of Fernandez’s spending in hopes of attracting more independent voters.
Six months ago, few imagined Fernandez would be wielding such influence.
Her administration was clouded by the mysterious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman. Nisman was found dead Jan. 18, hours before he was to appear before Congress to elaborate on his explosive accusation that Fernandez plotted to cover up the alleged role of several Iranian officials wanted in a bombing that killed 85 people at a Jewish community center in 1994.
Fernandez denied the allegations and the courts later threw out Nisman’s case. Authorities have yet to charge anyone in the prosecutor’s death.
The president’s clumsy handling of the scandal took a toll. In February, several polls put her approval rating in the low 30s. By May it had climbed to 40 percent and by the last weekend in July it topped 50 percent, said Roberto Bacman, director of the Center for Public Opinion Studies, a South American research firm.
“We are witnessing a very peculiar phenomenon,” said Bacman, who attributed Fernandez’s revival in part to Argentines’ general fear of major changes in the economy.
After months of promising to lead Argentines in a vastly different direction by attracting foreign investment, Macri did an about-face two weeks ago by saying he now supported Fernandez’s state takeovers of Aerolineas Argentinas airline and YPF oil company.
The move was widely interpreted as an acknowledgement that Macri couldn’t run as an anti-Fernandez candidate when roughly half the electorate supports her.
Fernandez was quick to highlight the flip-flop. The next day, while inaugurating a road while Scioli stood at her side, she said: “We could have saved so much time if (the opposition) had realized just a little sooner” the value of the policies.
Scioli, a former powerboat racer who lost his right arm in competition, has walked a fine line between praising Fernandez’s policies and appealing to independent voters. He often talks of “gradualismo,” or gradual changes that he’ll make to the economy.
He has promised to slowly lift unpopular restrictions on citizens’ ability to buy U.S. dollars. Earlier this year, Macri said he would immediately lift the limits if elected. He quickly backed off after drawing sharp criticism that it wasn’t realistic, but he began making the promise again this week.
All the major candidates say they’ll solve the dispute with the foreign hedge funds, which Fernandez calls “vultures.” The issue goes back to the country’s $100 billion default in 2001. The group refused to accept lower-valued bond swaps and took Argentina to court in New York and won.
Paula Alejandra Vasconcelos, a single mother who lives in a poor neighborhood in southern Buenos Aires, said she hadn’t decided how she’ll vote.
She said she likes Fernandez’s policies but is turned off by the economic problems and recent scandals, including the death of Nisman.
“This country is like a science fiction novel,” she said. “And as Argentines, we have become used to this.”
5. TANGO WITH CREDITORS TAKES A TWIRL — ARGENTINE OFFICIALS INDICATE POSSIBLE THAW, BUT A SETTLEMENT ISN’T YET IN SIGHT (The Wall Street Journal)
By Julie Wernau and Taos Turner
8 August 2015
Argentine officials are hinting at a thaw in a long-running standoff with hedge-fund creditors, boosting investors’ interest in the struggling South American nation ahead of a New York court date Wednesday.
Daniel Scioli, a presidential candidate for the ruling Peronist party, told a radio talk-show host this past week that, if elected, his government would negotiate a deal with investors that have sued in New York to collect $1.7 billion they are owed on defaulted bonds.
Economy Minister Axel Kicillof said this month that reaching a deal with the holdouts is a matter of time. “I think it’s a question of finding the precise opportunity,” he said.
This past week, the price of Argentina’s benchmark notes due 2033 rose 4%, likely in anticipation of a deal following the Oct. 25 presidential election, analysts said.
Considerable hurdles remain to a settlement. Even so, the statements could point to a drastic shift for a country whose administration refers to its hedge-fund adversaries as “vultures.”
The standoff has sharply limited Argentine access to foreign capital at a time when its economy is struggling with rampant inflation, dwindling foreign reserves, hefty deficits and a slumping currency.
“There is pressure to calm financial markets at home leading up to the elections,” said Arturo Porzecanski, distinguished economist in residence at the School of International Service at American University in Washington.
Efforts to contact the Argentine embassy and government officials for comment were unsuccessful.
The MSCI Argentina Index, which covers about 85% of Argentine shares, has nearly doubled over the past two years, amid investors’ hopes that the departure of President Cristina Kirchner would herald a more investor-friendly regime.
All three major candidates in the presidential election have signaled to the local media a willingness for overhauls that would attract foreign investment to the country.
“Investors are hopeful that after the October election there will be a significant policy shift that will not only reopen capital markets for Argentina but will also enable the country to grow in a sustainable manner,” Arthur Carvalho, an economist at Morgan Stanley said in a note.
Still, no deal appears imminent. The administration of President Kirchner, which will remain in office through early December, isn’t actively seeking a settlement, and discussions with creditors led by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. aren’t currently under way, said a person familiar with the matter.
“We are not closer to a deal than a week ago,” said Sebastian Vargas, an economist at Barclays.
At issue Wednesday is whether Argentina has been forthcoming with creditors in disclosing the whereabouts of assets it owns around the world. Hedge funds led by Elliott Management’s NML Capital Ltd. and Aurelius Capital Management Ltd. are seeking sanctions, saying the government has refused to show its assets.
The hedge funds have chased Argentine assets around the globe. NML seized an Argentine navy training vessel in 2012 and tried to block the country from launching a pair of satellites. Other creditors attempted to seize the presidential plane in 2007.
While 93% of Argentina’s bondholders have agreed to restructured offerings since 2001 that pay about 30 cents on the dollar, last year Argentina’s trustee stopped paying those bondholders after a New York judge ruled that Argentina couldn’t pay some bondholders without paying its holdout creditors. It defaulted on $29 billion in restructured debt.
U.S. courts have jurisdiction over these lawsuits because Argentina had agreed in some of its bond contracts to resolve any disputes under New York law.
Argentina then issued about $4.5 million in debt under Argentine law.
But when domestic investors sold that debt to foreign investors, holdout creditors pursued the argument that the new bonds also fall within the court’s jurisdiction.
6. MIGUEL GALUCCIO, YPF CEO: PRESIDENT FERNÁNDEZ’S OILMAN (Financial Times.com)
By Benedict Mander
August 9, 2015
Miguel Galuccio’s easy charm is infectious. Even Vladimir Putin broke into a smile during a tête-à-tête earlier this year with the chief executive of YPF, Argentina’s renationalised energy company.
“I asked myself: how am I going to break the ice with this guy?” says Mr Galuccio, recalling how the notoriously severe Russian president’s expression had barely flinched during an official lunch just before their meeting.
But Mr Putin’s stern countenance quickly melted away when Mr Galuccio, who was 47 that day, played his opening gambit. “Mr President, this is my second birthday in Russia. The first was in Siberia. This time I am in the Kremlin, with you. I’m getting better,” joked Mr Galuccio, earning himself a jaunty slap from the Russian leader.
Whether Russia’s Gazprom ends up partnering with YPF to develop Argentina’s vast, untapped shale reserves, as Mr Galuccio hopes, remains to be seen.
But his ability to win the confidence of others has certainly gone a long way in helping him to reach the pinnacle of corporate Argentina, which he achieved when President Cristina Fernández gave him the top job at YPF after the government expropriated a 51 per cent stake in the country’s biggest company from Spain’s Repsol in 2012. “For a president who had taken such a complicated decision as to nationalise a company like YPF, and then put it into the hands of someone who is not a politician and who she doesn’t even know — that’s when I clicked,” said Mr Galuccio, who admits that he had been standoffish when he was first invited to meet the president.
After all, taking the reins at YPF in 2012 following a highly politicised and antagonistic expropriation process was a risky proposition; venomous critics would be waiting to pounce at every false move. And besides, he had been very happy living as what he calls a “global nomad”, moving from the US to Mexico to Indonesia.
At the time he was offered the job at YPF, he was based in London, where he was running a team for Schlumberger, the oil services company, in charge of more than 100 projects around the world. But the petroleum engineer was impressed that Ms Fernández — often derided by her critics as a populist — was convinced that YPF needed to be managed by a professional from the private sector. That sealed his decision: “If it was a risk for me, she was taking a risk that was 10-times greater. And we had a chance to do something really great.”
Mr Galuccio was no stranger to YPF. Indeed, he insists that he would never have taken the job had he not started his career there.
CV
Born: April 1968, Paraná, Entre Ríos province, Argentina
Education: Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires
Career: 1992-99: Various roles at YPF, including managing operation and development of oilfields in the south of Argentina
1999-2012: Various roles at Schlumberger, first general manager for Mexico and Central America, then London-based director of the Integrated Project Management division from 2005, until being named director of Schlumberger Production Management in 2011
2012: Returns to YPF as chief executive
Family: Married with a son and daughter
Interests: Polo, flying helicopters, boxing
He vividly recounts how chills were sent down his spine when he received a telephone call late one evening while he was a 24-year-old trainee working in Denver, where he knew no one. Although he had eaten, it was an invitation to dinner from a senior figure at YPF with whom he had had a long technical discussion earlier that day, which he was quite convinced had not gone well.
“Today we are going to dine twice,” he excitedly told his wife, who was heavily pregnant with their first child. He accepted the job he was offered over dinner: “It was the most important decision I have ever taken.”
Although going to work out in the field in Comodoro Rivadavia on the inhospitable southern coast of Argentina meant that, to his great dismay, he missed the moment of his son’s birth, it provided essential technical experience that laid the foundations for his career.
Ironically, his first stint at YPF came to an abrupt end when it was acquired by Repsol in 1999, even though the Spanish company chose Mr Galuccio, after a lengthy selection process, as the face of their publicity campaign to relaunch their image in Argentina. A true oil man, Mr Galuccio was disappointed by the lack of oil and gas culture at Repsol, and took a job at Schlumberger instead.
Of course, Mr Galuccio would eventually become the face of YPF again, but only once Repsol had gone. His return was partly thanks to his brother, who persuaded him to advise Sergio Urribarri, the governor of his home province Entre Ríos, about shale — even though, Mr Galuccio points out with a cheeky grin, he had to break it to him that there was no chance that the shale reserves in Entre Ríos would ever be commercially viable during the governor’s political lifetime.
Nevertheless, Mr Urribarri, a close confidant of the president, was so impressed that he put Mr Galuccio’s name forward when candidates were being sought to lead the newly renationalised company, which was founded as a state enterprise in 1922.
Before taking the plunge, Mr Galuccio admits that it was necessary to “align expectations” and be assured that the president shared his vision of YPF as a “hybrid” company — majority-owned by the state, but with a strong private sector culture. Since then, he insists that his success would not have been possible without the support he has received from the president and her inner circle, such as economy minister Axel Kicillof, a former university professor with a special fascination for Karl Marx.
Indeed, the president’s gamble on Mr Galuccio seems to have paid off. Three years on, a declining trend in oil and gas production has been reversed, causing YPF’s profits and share price to soar, while important progress has been made in developing the Vaca Muerta shale formation in Patagonia, which contains some of the largest unconventional energy reserves in the world.
Mr Galuccio is especially proud of the focus on technology that he has brought to YPF, which he says has traditionally been the domain of oil service companies, such as his former employer, Schlumberger.
“In unconventional energy, technology is an extremely important factor. Whoever has that edge can change the future,” he says, jumping out of his chair to show off some special sand that could make “fracking” more efficient, made at his request with polymers in a laboratory by Y-TEC, the company’s research and development arm that he founded.
“YPF is a showcase of what can be done by combining the public and private sectors,” says Mr Galuccio, who argues that the government’s objective to secure energy independence for Argentina does not conflict with the need to create shareholder value. Both require production and reserves to grow, and for that it is necessary to raise capital. “It is clear today that we have helped — and are helping — our country, and also that our investors are happy,” he says.
But this is still only the beginning. Despite impressive results so far, Argentina’s goal of becoming energy self-sufficient remains distant and further jeopardised by the collapse in oil prices over the past year, which is putting a damper on the foreign investment that Argentina so desperately needs for its shale reserves to realise their full potential.
Certainly, the epic nature of his task has not escaped Mr Galuccio. “The importance of YPF for the country transcends its importance as a business,” he says. “YPF could change the history of Argentina.”
Second opinion
The former boss
“YPF are lucky to have him,” says Andrew Gould, non-executive chairman of BG, who worked closely with Mr Galuccio at Schlumberger as its CEO.
He commends Mr Galuccio’s role in the tough task of setting up the company’s Integrated Project Management division. “A good technical engineer with the capacity to define and implement business plans, he commands considerable loyalty from those around him but can also create considerable controversy.”
7. PA. MAN UNEARTHED DINOSAUR NOW A PITT PROF, HE HELPED TO FIND PATAGONIAN GIANT (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
By Brian Schrock Somerset
9 August 2015
SOMERSET, Pa. – As a child, Chris Coughenour would sneak onto a strip mine a few hundred yards from his parents’ property in Brothersvalley to collect rocks and fossilized ferns.
Now living in Richland, Cambria County, he still has boxes filled with his discoveries, some estimated to be 300 million years old.
“Honestly, if I would have grown up somewhere else, I don’t know that I would have had that interest, at least in geology,” Mr. Coughenour, 34, said. “That kind of planted the seed for me.”
That seed sprouted in 2005 with one of the biggest discoveries – quite literally – in the history of paleontology.
Mr. Coughenour was a first-year graduate student at Drexel University in Philadelphia. His adviser, paleontology professor Kenneth Lacovara, invited him on an expedition to Patagonia, a sparsely populated region at the southern end of South America that is shared by Argentina and Chile. The region is sometimes referred to as the “Land of the Giants” or the “Land of the Big Feet” because of 18th-century accounts of mariners encountering a race of 12-foot giants there.
Mr. Coughenour, then 23; Mr. Lacovara, a representative from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh; and several Argentinians set up camp on a rocky slope. The camp was several hours from the nearest town. The weather was highly variable, with temperatures rising to 85 degrees in full sun and then plummeting 25 degrees under cloud cover. The previous year a dinosaur femur had been discovered about a half-mile away.
On the first day of the expedition Mr. Coughenour found a piece of “float,” a term used to describe a fossil or artifact that is not associated with a larger specimen.
“I found what looked to be a piece of a humerus or an arm bone just sticking out of the outcrop,” he said. “It was probably about 2 feet long or so.”
The discovery was perhaps the most promising of the day until the Argentinians summoned the other team members to another section of the site.
“The bone was actually exposed there. They had kind of picked around the surface,” he said. “We had no idea, of course, how big it was or what it was. It was mostly still buried. We just saw a little bit of bone.”
The bone was on a small hill, so the team was fairly certain that it was not another piece of float that had washed down from a higher elevation.
“We focused our efforts there for the rest of that day,” Mr. Coughenour said. “By the end of the day we had pretty much outlined the femur. As they excavated around it, taking away the matrix, which is just the rock it is encased in, it just kept getting bigger and bigger. It just kept going and going. And finally it ended up being about 6 feet long.”
Although the entire fossil, and a smaller specimen, wouldn’t be unearthed for three more years, the team had discovered a new supermassive dinosaur species and one of the largest animals ever to walk the face of the earth.
The dinosaur – which was dubbed “Dreadnoughtus schrani” after the early 20th-century battleships and financial supporter Adam Schran – was 85 feet long, stood 2 stories at its shoulders and weighed 65 tons, according to Mr. Lacovara. Its neck was 37 feet long, yet its skull, which was never discovered, was roughly the size of a horse’s head.
“When these animals died, their heads just basically popped off,” Mr. Lacovara said.
The gigantic plant eater probably spent much of its time anchored in one spot, using its giraffe-like neck to consume tens of thousands of calories from the surrounding vegetation, he said. Because of the dinosaur’s size, it had little to fear. The name