Some things in the article made a good point, but look at this line 'The caveat is that Argentina is fueling its industry with discount energy prices. If those costs are raised, the competitiveness of its industries could be put in jeopardy. This is the most rational doomsday case against Argentina, although I’ve yet to see a good number-based analysis of the economic trade-offs in play.'
Another words, if YPF doesn't manage to get its act together, explore, and start making the energy in Argentina available at a cheap price, then Argentina will have to import its energy at an extremely expensive cost. If they have to import, everything will begin to cost a LOT of money due to this. When the government blames its problem on energy crises, it is in part true. But if YPF can somehow pull off a miracle, find tons of oil and gas, and start extracting it and satisfying Argentina's needs, then inflation will continue in its current path, which is bad, but since people have employment, can be somewhat manageable.
However, if YPF fails, Argentina is in trouble. Here's the problem: YPF is full of crooks. I know this because I have friends that work in the oil industry here, and they know all the executives that YPF put in charge. Most of them were fired from American and Canadian oil/gas companies for stealing. Why oh why did they put people like this in charge? I guess so that the politicians can also collect favors and a cut of the stolen money. I think the odds that YPF will somehow provide Argentina's energy needs are about like the odds that aerolineas will return to profitability.
The smart thing to do would be to let multiple smaller and more honest foreign oil companies (instead of Shell) come in and do r&d and extract the oil and gas, all while being up front with them that they will have to sell X amounts of their finds in this country at cost and let them export 20 or 30 percent at the price they wish, and charge them low taxes on their returns. YPF would then just be a front man that for the companies that really do the heavy lifting. But of course, that's considered non-patriotic. And the honest energy companies might not be so pliable when the time comes to collect a bribe.