ARGENTINA celebrated its first large shale-gas discovery in December, made at the Vaca Muerta play in Patagonia’s Neuquén province. President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the head of Spain’s Repsol, Antonio Brufau, gathered with business and government officials at Buenos Aires headquarters of YPF (Repsol’s local unit) and hailed the find as a potential boon to the country’s economy, crucial to turning around its struggling energy sector.
It was a rare moment of concord, when the objectives of the Argentine government and companies in the energy sector appeared to be in alignment.
But by early this year, the celebrations had been replaced by recriminations. In January, the government launched an investigation into YPF and a number of leading fuel suppliers amid accusations that the companies had colluded to keep diesel sold to the government at artificially high prices. The government said that companies – including YPF,...