Juan José Aranguren is an Argentine businessman. He was Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell of Argentina for fifteen years and served as Minister of Energy during the

Mauricio Macri Mauricio Macri (; born 8 February 1959) is an Argentine businessman and politician who served as President of Argentina from 2015 to 2019. He has been the leader of the Republican Proposal (PRO) party since its founding in 2005. He previously ...

's administration.

Early life and education

Aranguren was born in the

Entre Ríos Province Entre Ríos (, "Between Rivers") is a Center Region, Argentina, central provinces of Argentina, province of Argentina, located in the Mesopotamia, Argentina, Mesopotamia region. It borders the provinces of Buenos Aires Province, Buenos Aires (so ...

, and became a

chemical engineer A chemical engineer is a professional equipped with the knowledge of chemistry and other basic sciences who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of Product (chemistry), products and deals with ...

at the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires (, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the second-oldest university in the country, and the largest university of the country by enrollment. Established in 1821 ...

Career

Aranguren joined Shell Argentina in 1979, and was its director from 1997 to 2015. He opposed the administration of president Nestor and Cristina Kirchner and won several cases against the state for the state-controlled prices. In 2015,

appointed him Minister of Energy. Aranguren arranged the removal of state subsidies to

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

gas Gas is a state of matter that has neither a fixed volume nor a fixed shape and is a compressible fluid. A ''pure gas'' is made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon) or molecules of either a single type of atom ( elements such as ...

, and

water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

distribution, which caused a huge increase in taxes for those services. Those increases were met by protests in numerous cities by people bearing banners, bugles, and noise-making '' cacerolazos''. The government justified it as a required step to reduce the huge fiscal deficit, and pointed out that the subsidy system had almost ruined the whole energy distribution system. Macri explained this at the State of the State report, and Aranguren at an audience at the

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

. Several courts nulled the tax increase, as it had been ordered with a previous audience with customers to explain it, as required by law. The

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

ratified the temporary halt to the tax increase, but only for residential customers. The customer audiences were celebrated in September.

Controversies

Conflict of interest

Although Aranguren resigned from Shell to work as a minister of Energy, he still kept Shell shares for $16.3 million. There was a controversy, as some of his rulings benefited Shell, and he may have had a

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates t ...

in it. Aranguren saidd that there was no conflict of interest, and subsequently sold his shares, as suggested by the anticorruption office. He considered that government transparency had to clear for the Argentine society.

Paradise Papers

On 5 November 2017, the

Paradise Papers The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, from the newspaper'' Süddeutsche Z ...

, a set of confidential

electronic document An electronic document is a document that can be sent in non-physical means, such as telex, email, and the internet. Originally, any computer data were considered as something internal—the final data output was always on paper. However, the ...

s relating to

offshore investment Offshore investment is the keeping of money in a jurisdiction other than one's country of residence. Offshore jurisdictions are used to pay less tax in many countries by large and small-scale investors. Poorly regulated offshore domiciles have ser ...

, revealed that Aranguren have managed two

offshore companies The term "offshore company" or "offshore corporation" is used in at least two distinct and different ways. An offshore company may be a reference to: * a company, Corporate group, group or sometimes a division thereof, which engages in offshorin ...

, Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited and Sol Antilles y Guianas Limited, both subsidiaries of

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company, headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...

. One is the main bidder for the purchase of diesel oil by the current government through the state owned CAMMESA (Compañía Administradora del Mercado Mayorista Eléctrico).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aranguren, Juan Jose Ministers of energy of Argentina Argentine business executives University of Buenos Aires alumni Argentine people of Basque descent Living people 1954 births Argentine anti-communists Macri administration cabinet members