Blackouts, petrol shortage and cash woes as New Year's approaches

Rolling blackouts, a shortage of petrol and a union conflict at the Banco Nación are some of the problems that the City and the Greater Buenos Aires areas are expected to be facing in the next few days, which could potentially threaten New Year's celebrations.

As the high temperatures continue, at least 25,000 citizens in the City and the Greater Buenos Aires suburbs registered blackouts for a few days due to the high energy demands.

Rolling blackouts will continue to take place in the area for as long as the red alert remains in effect.

City government officials also confirmed that close to a 100 traffic lights remained unresponsive today due to the blackouts.

Residents in the Caseros and San Martín neighborhoods, in the Greater Buenos Aires area, continue to protest and set up roadblocks, demanding energy companies to bring back the power.

Regarding fuel shortages in petrol stations in the last few days, and despite assurances that the matter will be resolved before New Year’s Eve, long lines of motorists rushing to fill up their tanks can still be seen all across town.

Raúl Castellanos, secretary of the Confederation of Hydrocarbon Businesses, said he expected the lack of petrol to be solved “in the next 48 hours.”

“We didn’t run out of petrol and refineries have been working non-stop in the last few days,” he explained.

“This situation will obviously go away once everyone has filled their tanks, allowing petrol stations to stock up again. The lack of petrol began when in Buenos Aires many clients, concerned that there would not be enough petrol for everyone in the holidays, ran to the nearest stations to fill up their tanks in fear,” he explained.

Mr. Castellanos added that there was “an extraordinary increase in the amount of petrol consumption in Christmas,” while the YPF company was still dealing with an employee strike in Patagonia.

“Therefore, there was high demand but limited availability,” he concluded.

To make matters worse, the Banco Nación’s Internal Union Committee has vowed to continue their demands and ask for a Christmas bonus for the banks employees, and confirmed their call for a national strike next Thursday. Even though sources in the bank have confirmed that several clerks would be available for senior citizens looking to collect their pensions, although they could not confirm this would be taking place across the country.

The biggest problem, however, would be for those expecting to collect their social plans, since most of them are paid at the end of the month.

Bank sources opined that this could cause “great conflict” and urged the banks president “to provide workers with an answer.”