Mark Fitzgerald, the CEO of the Malaysian energy giant’s Canadian division, said the company chose to expand its liquefied natural gas portfolio in South America because it offered more regulatory and policy certainty than Canada did. “As we looked around the world, the most attractive supply basin is Canada,” Fitzgerald said during a Calgary energy event, but “because of the uncertainty that existed under the last government of the day and the rules [in Canada], we made a decision to move into Argentina.” (The Logic)

Talking point: Argentina has been gripped by economic and monetary crisis for decades, and the company’s preference to invest there reinforces the extent of Canada’s struggle to build major projects like pipelines. In an interview after his remarks, Fitzgerald declined to tell The Logic which Argentine investment he was referring to. Petronas is currently building two LNG facilities in the country, one of them a US$30-billion megaproject in partnership with state-owned energy firm YPF. His comments come after a report Petronas is looking to sell its Canadian energy assets for US$7 billion. On Tuesday, Fitzgerald said the report, which cited unnamed sources, was “absolutely not true.”