Argentina Law Lets Buenos Aires Power Firms Offset US$781m in Old Debts
ARGENTINA · ENERGY
Key Facts
- —The country Argentina has about 46 million people and Latin America’s third-largest economy. Greater Buenos Aires, home to roughly a third of them, gets its electricity from two private companies, Edenor and Edesur.
- —Why it matters For about two decades from 2002, governments froze or held down power tariffs. The distributors stopped paying in full for the electricity they bought and piled up debts to the wholesale market.
- —Why now President Javier Milei has raised tariffs and cut subsidies since taking office in late 2023. Settling these old debts, and the companies’ counter-claims, was the last loose end.
- —What happened On Thursday 24 September the Senate voted 38 to 8 to pass an energy bill. It cuts gas discounts in cold regions and lets distributors cancel debts to the wholesale market operator.
- —The numbers Cabinet figures sent to Congress put distributors’ debts at US$1.842 billion. Edenor owes US$438 million and Edesur US$343 million, together about US$781 million.
- —What it means for you Households in parts of Buenos Aires province, Córdoba, Mendoza and other cold areas may lose a 30 to 50 percent gas discount. Investors get cleaner balance sheets at both companies.
- —Still open How large the companies’ credits will be. The Energy Secretariat must calculate them after the law is signed and regulated.
Argentina’s Congress has passed a law letting Edenor and Edesur, which supply Buenos Aires, cancel old debts to the wholesale power market. The measure rode inside a bill best known for cutting gas discounts in cold regions.
The Senate passed it on Thursday 24 September by 38 votes to 8, completing work the lower house began in May. Cabinet figures put the two firms’ debts at about US$781 million, part of US$1.842 billion owed by distributors nationwide.
What the Senate passed
The bill is formally called the Energy Measures Law. The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, approved it on 20 May by 132 votes to 105, with four abstentions.
On Thursday the Senate took it in a single vote, covering the general outline and every article at once. That made it law in congressional terms, with no return trip to the lower house.
The session nearly collapsed. La Política Online, a political news site, says Peronist senators walked out an hour early to break the 37-member quorum.
The government, allied radicals, conservatives and several provincial parties held on. The eight votes against came mainly from senators for cold provinces, including Mendoza, Santa Fe, Buenos Aires, La Pampa and Santa Cruz.
How the debt swap works
The clause is article 4. It orders the state to calculate what federally regulated distributors lost while emergency laws held tariffs below their contract levels.
If that calculation shows the companies are owed money, the credit goes only to cancel what they owe Cammesa. Cammesa is the company that runs Argentina’s wholesale power market and bills distributors for the electricity they buy.
The credit cannot exceed the debt, so no cash flows to the companies. In exchange, they must drop all legal and administrative claims against the state, the provinces and Cammesa linked to the tariff emergencies.
The companies call those lost revenues “regulatory assets.” The state never formally recognised them, and they have long been a source of possible lawsuits.
Who owes what
The Cabinet Chief’s office sent Congress a list of debts totalling US$1.842 billion, according to La Política Online and Letra P. Edenor tops it with US$438 million, followed by Edesur with US$343 million.
Next come the DESA group’s three provincial distributors at US$304 million and Chaco’s state company Secheep at US$125 million. Edelap in La Plata owes US$121 million, and about 20 cooperatives roughly US$60 million.
The newspaper Clarín gives slightly different figures for Edenor and Edesur: peso debts worth about US$450 million and US$300 million. That is the source of the widely reported US$750 million.
The other side is murkier: Clarín’s sector sources put the two firms’ claims at US$2 billion and US$1.2 billion. Industry executives say at most double their debts.
Why it rode with the cold-zone bill
The link is political, not technical. Most of the bill rolls back a 2021 law that extended gas discounts of 30 to 50 percent beyond Patagonia.
Under the new law, automatic discounts remain only in the original cold zones: Patagonia, Malargüe in Mendoza and the high Andean Puna. Elsewhere only low-income households, people with disability certificates and war veterans keep them.
Clarín reports the clause almost copies chapter XI of the 2026 budget, dropped to help that budget pass. Bundling it with the gas reform gave it a second route.
Governors from the warm north backed the bill after a promise of two more months of an electricity discount for hot regions. La Política Online and the newspaper Uno Entre Ríos both report the deal.
The government’s case and the objections
Milei’s government has made no detailed public defence of article 4. Clarín reports officials argue privately that the state recognises a vague liability and is then freed from paying it.
For the two companies, the gain is immediate: the debts disappear from their balance sheets. Clarín adds that Edesur’s owner, the Italian group Enel, would give up taking Argentina to the World Bank’s investment arbitration court.
Critics call it a transfer to private concessionaires, since no court ever ruled on the companies’ claims. Left-wing lawmakers say officials could not tell committees how large the credits would be.
Edenor lost power to about 600,000 customers this month, a failure since traced to a faulty switch. The company had earlier raised US$213 million in bonds as Milei’s utility reforms advanced.
What comes next
The law now goes to the president for signature and publication in the Official Gazette. Then the Energy Secretariat must write the detailed rules and calculate each company’s credit.
Only companies that keep their debts inside existing repayment plans and waive all claims can take part. The swap will also reach provincial distributors, where local governments set tariffs.
What it does not mean: households will not see lower electricity bills from it, and no official has published the final credits. The US$781 million figure is a ceiling set by the debts, not a confirmed payout.
Energy policy is moving on several fronts at once. This week the government also made data centres and mines bring their own power supply.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Argentina simply forgive the power companies’ debts?
Not exactly. The law sets their unpaid tariff claims against debts to Cammesa, the wholesale market operator, if they drop all related claims.
How much money is involved?
Cabinet figures put all distributors’ debts at US$1.842 billion, including US$438 million for Edenor and US$343 million for Edesur. Clarín cites about US$450 million and US$300 million, and the final credits are not yet calculated.
What does this have to do with the cold-zone gas subsidy?
Nothing in substance; both travelled in the same energy bill. The debt clause is article 4, while most of the bill rolls back a 2021 expansion of cold-region gas discounts.
Is the law already in force?
Congress has finished with it, but it still needs the president’s signature and publication in the Official Gazette. The Energy Secretariat must then write detailed rules before any debt is offset.
Sources: Clarín, 25 September 2026; La Política Online, 24 September 2026; Letra P, 25 September 2026; iProfesional, 25 September 2026; Canal 26, 24 and 26 September 2026; Uno Entre Ríos, 24 September 2026; Perfil, 21 May 2026 (lower-house vote); Chequeado explainer on the cold-zone law.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
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