When announcing the numbers, Secretary of Energy Darío Martínez said: “This is great news for the country because the hydrocarbon sector is one of the great productive engines that Argentina has. It makes us very happy because this increase in activity, which has been constant month after month, accompanies and enhances the growth process that our country is going through”.
“These numbers are important because when production grows, more jobs are generated, more SMEs join the activity, we develop more added value and more national technology,” the official remarked.
In December, Argentina’s total oil production had reached 559 thousand barrels per day, becoming the highest since October 2012. With the 570 thousand barrels produced in January, the growth trend in the sector is confirmed, which already produces 8% more than in February 2020 before the pandemic.
In the case of gas, it was also a record month, with a production of 45.3 MM m3 per day, which represents an increase of 69% compared to the same month last year.
variables
When analyzing the increase in the production of Vaca Muerta, which has been maintained at a sustained rate for months, Roberto Carnicer, director of the Energy Institute of the Austral University, told Ámbito: “The increase in production in Vaca Muerta is due to especially to fracture. Production is directly proportional to the number of fractures made. The maximum peak of fractures in 2019 was in the month of July, and from there the level of activity fell precipitously until September 2020. As of the launch of the Gas.Ar Plan project, in November 2020, the to see the strong increase in the number of fractures, with a totally opposite slope to the one it had been having. In April 2021, there were some protests over vaccination, with roadblocks in Neuquén, so there was a decrease in fractures in that period. And then, the activity starts to grow steadily again.”
In this sense, the specialist highlighted that “the Gas.Ar Plan also favors exports to those who sign up, and that means that the good signs, by ensuring a price in dollars, generated expectations in the producers.” “In the case of crude oil, it also had a similar evolution. In crude, this year begins to see a viability for export, with good expectations and high international prices. In short, production grows because economic signals were given in dollars from the Gas.Ar Plan. In the case of crude oil, it grows because the international price is an attractive price”, Carnicer remarked.
Finally, the director of the Energy Institute of the Austral University stressed that the construction of the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline that will connect Vaca Muerta with different strategic points in the country “is a necessity”: “A necessity that was delayed two years. The project was to come out, with a tender, in October 2019. It was essential to solve it. Because now it is not a gas problem: it is an infrastructure problem. I have gas, I have a price for the domestic market, but what I don’t have is a gas pipeline to transport it”.
Source: Ambito
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