Juan Pablo Nogués Peña, Atome’s project manager in Paraguay and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce’s (MIC) full representative on the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt), is a first cousin of President Santiago Peña. The overlap between his roles, his family tie and the setting of electricity tariffs close to the amount requested by the company raise questions about a possible conflict of interest, although no evidence has been presented that Nogués influenced the decisions.
On November 12, 2025, Atome asked the National Electricity Administration (ANDE), the state utility responsible for the electricity sector, to change its 2022 supply contract and proposed a tariff of US$30 per megawatt-hour (MWh). Fifteen days later, Peña signed Decree 4,999/2025, reappointing Nogués as the MIC’s full representative on Conacyt for the 2025–2027 term. Under the legislation cited in the decree, the institution being represented makes the appointment.
On December 22, the MIC and the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies presented a technical report to support a tariff system denominated in dollars. On January 16, 2026, Peña signed Decrees 5,306 and 5,307. The latter set hydrogen tariffs that, in a calculation published by the newspaper ABC Color, range from US$30 to US$32/MWh—a range close to the US$30 requested by Atome.
Decree 5,307 also created a consumption category at 220 kilovolts, the voltage level used by Atome’s project in Villeta. Both decrees require tariffs to cover the cost of supply, but the published analysis says Decree 5,307 does not cite a cost study. The decrees were countersigned by the MIC, the technology ministry and the Ministry of Public Works and Communications, but not by ANDE, which sells the electricity.
In response to questions from ABC Color, Nogués confirmed the family relationship and said he had never discussed the issue with the president. He also said the family tie had no influence and that he had worked at Atome since 2021, before the decrees. The newspaper said the documents it examined do not prove that he interfered in the decisions.
Nogués said he had left his post at Conacyt and that Industry Minister Marco Riquelme had sent a replacement. However, the council’s website still listed him as its full representative on September 25, and there was no public record of his resignation or identification of a possible replacement. Atome, a British company planning a green fertilizer plant in Villeta, has threatened to take its dispute with the Paraguayan state to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), part of the World Bank Group.