Section 1 – Conflict Minerals Disclosure
Item 1.01 Conflict Minerals Disclosure and Report
This report for the year ended December 31, 2018 is presented to comply with Rule
13p-1
under the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Rule”). The Rule was adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), to implement reporting and disclosure requirements related to conflict minerals as directed by the
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The Rule imposes certain reporting obligations on SEC registrants whose manufactured products contain conflict minerals which are necessary to the functionality or production of
their products. Conflict minerals are defined as columbite-tantalite (coltan), cassiterite, gold, wolframite, or their derivatives, which are limited to tantalum, tin, and tungsten for the purposes of this assessment. These requirements apply to
registrants whatever the geographic origin of the conflict minerals and whether or not they fund armed conflict.
YPF S.A. (“we”
or the “Company”), evaluated the current product lines of its consolidated group and determined that our subsidiary
A-Evangelista
S.A. manufactures wires used in the control panels of instruments
used in the production of dry gas shale well connections which contain tin, a derivative of cassiterite. We also determined that none of the products we manufacture or contract to manufacture contains other conflict minerals.
We do not purchase any conflict minerals directly from mines, smelters of refiners. Instead, we rely on our direct and indirect suppliers of
raw materials for use in our products. We conducted in good faith a reasonable country of origin inquiry (“RCOI”), regarding conflict minerals and have determined that, during the period covered by this specialized disclosure report, none
of the conflict minerals we purchased originated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or a country that shares an internationally recognized border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the “Covered Countries”) nor came from
recycled or scrap sources.
Our RCOI process included (i) the development and establishment of governance structures across multiple
departments, including the assessment by an interdisciplinary team (composed by personnel from our manufacturing, supply chain, accounting, internal control and legal areas) whose primary responsibility is to gather data and conduct an analysis
which forms the basis of the Company’s determinations relating to source of conflict minerals, (ii) requiring all direct and indirect suppliers to provide a certificate of origin for all conflict minerals we purchase, (iii) obtaining
quality certificates and lab reports which allow us to confirm that the minerals come from an identifiable mine and smelter, (iv) record-keeping, and (v) escalation and
follow-up
procedures to
identify and escalate any identified issues associated with
non-responsive
or problematic responses to our RCOI.
Further, our General Purchase and Contracting Conditions (which are applicable to the Company and its subsidiaries include a package of
representations and covenants relating to conflict mineral sourcing, such as:
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A representation and warranty from the applicable supplier that none of the products, components, parts or
materials it delivers to the Company or its subsidiaries contain conflict minerals extracted from Covered Countries.
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A covenant from the supplier to provide, at our request, any information regarding the origin and chain of
custody of the conflict minerals which are necessary for the production or functionality of product manufactured by the contractor or supplied to us for our or our subsidiaries’ use.
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A covenant from the supplier or contractor to immediately inform us in case it discovers or has reason to believe
that any of the conflict minerals it delivered came from any of the Covered Countries.
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In addition, our RCOI process is
aided by (i) the fact that cassiterite is abundant in Brazil specifically and South America in general, (ii) our review of
http://www.responsiblemineralsinitiative.org/tin-conformant-smelters/
and confirmation that our supplier (White Solder Metalurgia e Mineracao Ltda.) is identified as a “conformant tin smelter”.