Argentina will sue the UK unless it suspends an oil drilling project off the coast of the Falkland Islands, the BBC has reported, citing an X post by Argentine president Javier Milei.
“I instructed the Foreign Ministry and our legal teams to initiate international arbitration against the United Kingdom for the illegal plundering of our resources through the Sea Lion Project in the North Malvinas Basin,” the Argentine president wrote on the social media platform.
“If in 2 weeks the United Kingdom does not halt the illegitimate exploitation, we will go to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. THE MALVINAS ARE ARGENTINE, and they are defended with facts, not words,” Milei also wrote.
The Sea Lion oil field is operated by Navitas Petroleum Development and Production Ltd (NPDP), a UK-based fully owned subsidiary of Israeli Navitas Petroleum, and its British partner Rockhopper Exploration.
The companies earlier this year reached a final investment decision on the Sea Lion Northern Development. This means that all the necessary approvals and funding for full-scale project execution have been secured. First oil is planned for March 2028, Navitas Petroleum says.
Oil production is expected to last for over 30 years, creating jobs across the Falkland Islands and the UK supply chain over that period. The two companies see no reason to heed the Argentine president’s warnings, saying they have valid licenses to drill in the area, issued by the British government.
The UK and Argentina fought a brief war in 1982 over the Falklands, which Argentina calls Las Malvinas, but the tension and the dispute never really faded away. Britain has controlled the islands since 1833, while Argentina has long claimed they are part of its territory. Last week at the UN General Assembly, President Milei stepped up the rhetoric, accusing the organization of becoming “useless” and serving “arrogant parasites dressed up as well-intentioned bureaucrats”.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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