Brazilian bank purchases 3.6% stake in nationalized YPF – ARGENTINIAN THEFT!

Brazilian bank Itaú Unibanco purchased a 3.6% stake in Argentina’s nationalized oil company YPF, an operation involving 157.8 million dollars.

In a communiqué sent to the Buenos Aires stock exchange YPF said on Tuesday that Itaú Unibanco through one of its affiliates in Grand Cayman last June 12 acquired a 3.609% stake in the company.

According to YPF, which last month was seized from Spain’s Repsol, the Brazilian bank said that its purpose “is not a greater share or to take control of the company”

The Itaú-Unibanco follows last week’s announcement by a subsidiary from the Mexican tycoon, Carlos Slim, Inbursa and Inmobiliaria Carso which acquired 8.36% of YPF’s shares for 340 million dollars.

The Argentine government took over a majority stake in YPF, 51%, from Spain’s Repsol following the congressional approval of a bill to that effect.

Likewise Repsol executed YPF shares in guarantee for unpaid credits from the Argentine group Petersen, thus increasing the Spanish group’s participation in the now nationalized oil and gas company to 12%.

In 2008 the Petersen Group was granted a loan of 1.018 billion dollars from a group of banks which included Crédit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas and Banco Itaú Europa plus a further 1.015 billion dollars from Repsol to purchase 14.9% of YPF.

The Petersen group was chosen and sponsored at the time by the Kirchner couple (Nestor and Cristina) to take hold of a quarter of the company, thus increasing the local share of the iconic oil and gas corporation which is also Argentina’s largest. The Petersen group belongs to the Ezkenazi family, close friends of the Kirchners.

Repsol CEO Antonio Brufau is claiming 10 billion dollars in compensation for the seized 51% of shares, but the Argentine government has said it would not pay the sum claimed by the Spanish company.

Last June 5, YPF announced it is planning to invest 7 billion dollars per annum from 2013 to 2017 with the purpose of increasing reserves and extraction helping Argentina to overcome its growing fuels deficit that in 2011 soared to over 9 billion dollars.

YPF will no longer contract British-flagged vessels for the transport of oil

A small group of protesters (COWARDS always hide their face)  burned a British flag Monday outside the headquarters of Argentina's oil company in Buenos Aires, saying YPF SA should stop using tankers that fly flags from the British Commonwealth.

Protestors burn a Union Jack in front of the YPF main offices Protestors burn a Union Jack in front of the YPF main offices

Before it was expropriated from Spain's Repsol oil company, YPF used the Stela Polaris, which flies a Bermudan flag, to carry oil from Patagonian ports.

Liliana Fadul, a Lower House member representing Tierra del Fuego province that nominally includes the Falklands and other South Atlantic Islands, says YPF is now violating regulations designed to thwart offshore oil and gas exploration in contested waters around the Falkland Islands.

The protest was organized by Quebracho, a radical group involved in a series of anti-British rallies during this year's 30th anniversary of Argentina's 74-day occupation of the Islands following on the invasion of 2 April 1982.

A veteran from the 1982 war burned a replica of the British Union Jack and joined other protesters in presenting demands to YPF officials.

In response, the company said it has no plans to continue using British-flagged ships to transport its energy.

“YPF only made an exception this one time, buying from a British ship to guarantee the supply of oil and gas in Tierra del Fuego ahead of the coming winter” the nos nationalized YPF said in a statement.