BUENOS AIRES, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- China is set to increase capital spending in Argentina as it enters new partnership deals including an international project on developing the Latin American country's untapped shale fuels.
Argentina says its current gas resources won't last beyond six years and tapping into shale is an urgent issue for an economy consuming more energy than it can generate locally, leading to costly imports.
China is Argentina's largest customer for farm goods and second-largest trade partner, after neighbor Brazil.
Although China is not expected to overtake Brazil as Argentina's top export market by 2030, its share is expected to almost double over that period, HSBC said in a report.
"By 2030 we forecast more than 18 percent of Argentina's exports will go to China, increasing the proportion of exports to Asia (excluding Japan) to over 30 percent," the bank said in its Global Connections Report on the country.
Trade between Argentina and China reached $14.84 billion in 2012, officials said.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told Argentine businessmen visiting Beijing China is seeking to deepen ties with Argentina "with a more comprehensive and strategic vision."
Li made a similar pronouncement as a host in Beijing this week to Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, making clear that strategy extended from Latin America to the Caribbean region.
China's expanding energy portfolio in Latin America gives the country vital foothold on the continent with convenient connections to the Caribbean and Central America.
Argentina's shale oil project is well-timed for China's planned entry into Latin America's energy sector and follows the Argentine government's controversial handling of its energy policies amid nationalizations and interventionist government measures criticized by business leaders.
Argentina seized majority control of YPF energy major last year, ejecting Spanish owner Repsol, and launched a series of talks with international companies to draw more cash into the company.
Despite Repsol's outcry and threats of litigation, Argentina managed to secure new funding from a diverse range of risk-takers including Chevron, Dow and Pan-American Energy.
Amid excitement in the global energy scene over shale energy's impact on world supply outlook, the attraction of prime shale reserves waiting to be exploited in Argentina's Vaca Muerta region has proved too hard to resist.
State-run China National Offshore Oil Corp., a likely lead partner in the developing shale deal, boosted its profits this month with its latest acquisition, Nexen, based in Calgary, which it bought for $15.1 billion. That deal won approval by regulators in February, giving CNOOC access to Canadian oil sands as well as Nexen properties in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Nigeria.
The Vaca Muerta deal being discussed in Argentina has a profile similar to Nexen's. The Canadian company needed cash for expansion, as does YPF in Argentina.
CNOOC is expected to develop the shale deposits as part of a Bridas Corp. joint venture with Argentina's billionaire Bulgheroni brothers or with the Bridas-run Pan American Energy LLC or both.
Fernandez has promised investors generous incentives if they invest at least $1 billion in oil and gas development. Argentina spent $9.4 billion on fuel imports in 2011 and its current fuel import bill is said to exceed $15 billion.
Borrowing on international capital markets remains a problem for Argentina because of its 2001 sovereign debt default.
