Buenos Aires, Feb 8 (EFE).- Argentine oil company YPF, a unit of Spain's Repsol-YPF, announced Wednesday that its investments in the South American country rose last year by 50 percent to a record 13.3 billion pesos ($3.06 billion).
The country's largest oil and gas producer, which President Cristina Fernandez's government has accused of not investing enough in Argentina, cited the investment figure in a regulatory filing.
The announcement was made just 48 hours after Repsol Chairman and CEO Antonio Brufau met with Argentina's planning and economy ministers, Julio De Vido and Hernan Lorenzino, amid controversy over the accusations made by Argentine government and rumors about plans to nationalize the formerly state-owned YPF.
"Even though YPF has 60 percent of the fuel market, it has not made investments to expand its refineries in the time that the country's sustained demand growth requires," De Vido said last weekend, also accusing the company of not making sufficient investment in exploration and production.
YPF said Wednesday that more than 8.9 billion pesos ($2.05 billion) of its 2011 investment total were earmarked for exploration and production, while another 4.2 billion pesos ($965.5 million) were allocated to refining, logistics, chemicals and marketing.
The company, whose main shareholders are Repsol with a 57.43 percent stake and Argentina's Grupo Petersen with a 25.46 percent interest, said it incorporated 137 million barrels of oil into its reserves in 2011, "meaning that for the second consecutive year its reserve-replacement ratio exceeded 100 percent."
The company said approximately 7 billion pesos ($1.61 billion) were invested in development, including the drilling of 659 development wells and secondary recovery, repair and infrastructure-building activities.
The company added that its three refineries operated at maximum capacity last year.
YPF, which will release its financial results for all of 2011 over the next few weeks, posted net profit of 4.51 billion pesos ($1.04 billion) for the first nine months of last year, 1.61 percent less than in the same period of 2010.
The Argentine government holds just 0.02 percent of YPF's shares but under the terms of the 1999 privatization it holds veto power and can participate in the decisions of the board of directors.
The remaining 17.09 percent of the company's shares are traded on the Buenos Aires and New York stock exchanges.
