The Argentine judiciary ordered on Wednesday, the 16th, that the oil companies Rockhopper Exploration and Navitas Petroleum halt the development of a field in deep waters in the Falkland Islands, amid the escalating tension between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the sovereignty of the archipelago.
The federal judge Mariel Borruto, from the Tierra del Fuego province in the southernmost part of the South American country, granted the precautionary measure requested by environmentalists and Argentine ex-combatants in the war against the British for the island.
The magistrate ordered the British and Israeli companies, respectively, “to refrain from initiating, continuing, executing or causing to be executed material acts” of the Sea Lion project, according to the document The Associated Press had access to.
The judicial measure is preventive and occurs in a context of rising tensions after Argentine President Javier Milei recently announced the installation of a naval base in Tierra del Fuego, the continental point closest to the archipelago, and sent to Congress a bill to harden sanctions currently in place against national and foreign companies operating in the Falklands.
