Vaca Muerta: strong expectations of businessmen to reach 1 million barrels of oil

The most enthusiastic was the president of YPF, Horacio Marinwho assured that they are about to close commercial agreements with India, Germany and Hungary for the sale of Argentine LNG and reiterated that with the deepening of the activity in Dead Cow Plus the plans for Liquefied Natural Gas will be exported by the energy sector US$30 billion.

“Vaca Muerta has to move into the development phase. I am convinced that we will have 30 million tons of LNG and that Argentina will surpass one million barrels in the next decade, that we will begin to export 30 billion dollars in energy, starting in 2031, we will do that together with all the companies.” he said during a one-on-one panel with journalist José del Río.

In the panel called “Argentina’s role in the energy transition: the vision of the private sector”, José Frey Manager from Equinor Argentina, gave the company’s vision of “that the energy transition is a fact and a reality, and we see that it is undeniable, where the energy sector is transforming and evolving, with very powerful electrification vectors with very important social challenge vectors with more demands so that the energy that we at Equinor put on the market is increasingly more responsible and sustainable.”

Frey considered that the energy transition “is neither uniform in space nor in time, each country faces it in its own way depending on its socioeconomic and political conditions, among others.”

Jorge TorresDirector of TotalEnergiesstressed that the transition came hand in hand with a transformation of the company, and summarized the objective they have, which is “more energy, less emissions,” where they are determined to lead this transformation by decarbonizing these emissions.

Regarding the action plan, Torres announced investments of more than 100 million dollars in electrification operations in the country over the next two years: “We have just doubled our investment, building a 42 km high voltage 132 kW line that we hope to open at the end of the year, and that line is the backbone of our Pichana electrification program.”

For its part, Alejandro Lopez, Vice President of Reserve Development Pan American Energy (PAE), He highlighted the progress made in renewable energy in the country. If you look at the data and see the Argentine energy matrix over the last ten years, if you compare it, there is 14% of renewable energy, and when you look at thermal energy, 70% is generated by gas, which is considered one of the cleanest fossil fuels to contribute to this energy transition, and only 2% is coal, so we have done work that is in line with what society is working on.”

He reported that they are working in Aguada Pichana Oeste to ensure that this block takes a leap in quality and growth, going from 12 million to 16 million cubic meters per day starting in the second half of 2027.

Andres Cavallari, CEO of Raízen Argentina, gave the perspective of a refiner highlighting the opportunity that it provides Dead CowThe businessman considered that being able to have the country’s resources, both oil and gas, is key for a refinery, where he highlighted that “Vaca Muerta crude oil has properties that make it attractive for processing. Being light, it is a product that provides better performance for motor products. More processing is helping to produce and generate more fuel.”

There he explained that by being lighter, you consume less energy to process it, emission savings, and a third characteristic is that it is sweet and has little sulfur, which improves the hydrogen balance, we can have more hydrogen available where we could make green diesel.

In another panel entitled “Argentine energy to the world: Is a new export complex emerging?” Ricardo Markous, CEO of Tecpetrolcompared the situation the country was experiencing when Shell turned 100 years old and Argentina had to import 104 shipments of LNG, while today and thanks to Dead Cow only 29 are important, dropping to 20 by 2025.

Markous stressed that “this is something of the industry, The GNK gas pipeline is currently close to 22 million cubic meters per day, completing the reversal of the northern gas pipeline, which will allow that from October onwards no more gas will be imported from Bolivia.

Regarding the dollar restriction, he said that “our business is, by nature, very long-term” and that they see themselves as “engines for the restriction to be lifted,” predicting that “we are just a short time away from getting out of it.”

Finally, he considered the issue of human resources to be key and commented that they are carrying out work on the technical and mathematical side, starting with seven schools and the idea is to reach 19.

Regarding the challenges of the regulatory framework Emilio Nadra, Co-CEO of CGC, spoke of the importance for the country of the quality of the standards and the respect of the contracts, a very interesting path that has been taken for years in the industry where we are improving the quality of these instruments.

“The solutions we find have to be systemic to allow contracts to evolve in an agreed manner,” said Nadra.

He also expressed his enthusiasm with Palermo Aike, where he reported that “we are testing the first horizontal well, very excited to find a new shale with the immense challenge of making it competitive looking at the demand.”

Pablo Vera Pinto, Vista’s CFO highlighted that the company was conceived with an export model and horizon that had very strong growth in 2021 and was consolidated in 2022. From there, it continued to grow where currently the industry is exporting 25% of its crude oil “and in our case, light crude oil is 60% higher, clearly that makes the industry and Vista much more attractive and we believe that this will spill over to the rest of the company and obviously to the country because it will generate reserves.”

The businessmen were optimistic about reaching US$30 billion in exports by 2030, where they mentioned the substitution of gas imports, the great opportunity offered by LNG and oil where “there are no limitations.”