Oil & Gas: The week in 10 stories

Argentina's energy minister Juan José Aranguren confirmed that the controversial fossil fuel tax on CO2 emissions will not apply to natural gas, but will be applied to liquid fuels. The ministry also announced a transition path for 2018 and 2019 leading to "a completely free natural gas market," and said a series of measures will accompany the "normalization" of the sector to generate the conditions for a production increase to reduce imports and resume exports.

Argentina will launch an offshore round in July 2018, which will include large areas of the Austral Marina (5,000km2), Malvinas Oeste (90,000km2) and Argentina Norte (130,000km2) basins, and the plan will be "one of the most important Argentina has to extend the horizon of its oil and gas reserves," the energy ministry said.

BRAZIL

Petrobras and ExxonMobil have struck up a strategic alliance to jointly identify and evaluate potential business opportunities. The companies will "evaluate areas of mutual interest that can bring together their world-class experience across all sectors of the oil and gas production value chain, including opportunities for cooperation in exploration, production, gas and chemicals both inside and outside Brazil," they said in a joint statement.

The Brazilian NOC began the teaser stage for the sale of the interest its subsidiary Petrobras Biocombustíveis (PBio) has in BSBios, which corresponds to 50% of the latter's share capital, part of Petrobras' 2017-18 divestment plan.

The country's congress approved a measure that extends a tax incentive for importing goods used in oil and gas exploration and production. The country's lower house rejected changes made by senators to the measure, which extends the program known as Repetro, maintaining a clause that assures the suspension of taxes through 2040.

COLOMBIA

Oil and gas companies will raise investments in Colombia by up to 45% next year, according to industry association ACP. The exploration and production segments are expected to receive US$4.5-4.9bn, up from US$3.4bn in 2017, while some US$3.5-3.8bn will be allocated to production projects, up 50-60% on this year's figure. Despite the increase, crude output is expected to remain stable at 860,000-880,000b/d.

MEXICO

The energy ministry published the guidelines for a policy governing natural gas storage and strategic inventories.

The ministry also set mandatory fuel storage levels to guard against fuel shortages and increase energy security.

VENEZUELA

Government officials met with executives from major international oil companies, including Rosneft, Chevron and Total, to discuss a planned revamp of the country's hydrocarbon sector. Newly appointed oil minister Manuel Quevedo (pictured) also met in private with Chinese state oil firm CNPC, seeking to "strengthen commercial relations" between it and PDVSA.

And a corruption scandal engulfing PDVSA and Venezuelan government officials escalated this week as police in Andorra probe claims that a cartel involving top Venezuelan officials funneled more than US$2bn from PDVSA contracts between 2007 and 2012.