The Government seeks to advance with the arrival of the train to Vaca Muerta, which will connect the energy productive heart of Argentina with one of the main ports of the country, in Bahía Blanca. The works will involve financing for almost US$1.2 billion that is negotiated with China, but there is also interest from the private sector. The expansion of the railway structure will allow lower costs for the arrival of supplies, and increase transportation capacity by up to 6 times.
“For Vaca Muerta to have the enormous production projections it currently has, it must be provided with resources, and for that the train has to add to the productive development of the area,” he stated. Silvestre Fontanachief of staff, management and infrastructure of ADIF, which is the agency in charge of railway infrastructure of the Ministry of Transportation.
The infrastructure to reach the star sector of the economy with the North Patagonian Train will consist of two stages. On the one hand, “fine-tune” the renewal of tracks on the existing route between Bahía Blanca, province of Buenos Aires, to the Contraalmirante Cordero station, in General Roca, Río Negro, with an extension of 755 kilometers.
On the other hand, they will build a new route, 77 kilometers long, that will go from Contraalmirante Cordero to Añelo, Neuquén, the city in the heart of Vaca Muerta. Between both works, The Ministry of Transportation negotiates an amount of US$ 1.2 billion in financing. “Getting the infrastructure ready costs US$1 billion, which is negotiated with China. It is necessary to renew all existing roads to transport the quantities that we think will be needed,” Fontana explained.
In addition, the ADIF member revealed that there are business sectors interested in investing in the new section of the train, which will cost US$180 million. “The oil companies in the area are very interested in investing, because of the improvement that this will bring in their competitiveness,” Fontana added.
The section that reaches Vaca Muerta is the “priority” today for the Government. There are 83 kilometers of new road. Currently, the works being carried out are the execution of what is known as a “railway playground”, with a State investment of US$9 million. Transportation is encouraged to project that the new section of the train could be ready to reach Añelo in 2025. “The deadline is ideal,” said Fontana.
Vaca Muerta aspires to reach one million barrels of oil per day. However, beyond fractures, production or employment, Transportation detected that the next bottleneck to avoid is the transportation of supplies. That is why they estimate that the train has to quintuple its frequency, and stop passing only once a day, as it currently does. In addition, add a greater number of training courses.
The official view is that the railway is the only mode that can offer the scale and costs that make regional projects competitive. The total projected input demand in 2018 was 1.58 million tons, while by 2030 it is expected to rise to 4.15 million. It includes products and inputs such as methanol, sand, pipes, cement and other materials.
The biggest jump in demand will occur in sand, a key input for the development of the fracking technique. While in 2018 it was estimated that Vaca Muerta required 985,000 tons of sand, by 2030 a rail transport demand of 2.73 million is expected. “We are thinking about formations of 80 wagons to transport sand, which today is the most required and complicated input, because it has a very expensive way of transporting it. But machinery could also be added, which Vaca Muerta demands all the time for exploration,” Fontana explained. According to official estimates, the price of freight transportation by train could be a tenth of that by truck.
Source: Ambito
