Page 4 - LatAmOil Week 35 2022

LatAmOil COMMENTARY LatAmOil

Field in Vaca Muerta (Photo: YPF)
YPF’s export agenda

The company’s plan to build Argentina’s biggest oil export terminal in Rio Negro
province may not be enough to ensure that Vaca Muerta realises its full potential

IN a bid to expand its access to world energy facility – that will be installed about 6.7 km
markets and move toward becoming a net from shore, Ámbito said. If finished on sched-
WHAT: exporter of hydrocarbons, Argentina’s national ule, it added, this facility will be capable by
YPF has rolled out a plan oil company (NOC) YPF has announced plans 2025 of handling 155mn barrels per year of oil,
to build a 425,000 bpd oil to build a new crude oil export terminal at the equivalent to nearly 425,000 barrels per day
export terminal offshore port of Punta Colorada de Sierra Grande in Rio (bpd). It will be able to load the equivalent of
Rio Negro Province. Negro province. one 390,000-cubic metre tanker to full capac-
YPF’s CEO Pablo González made the com- ity every five days, it said. YPF will need to hire
WHY: pany’s plan public after a meeting with provin- about 100 new employees to manage the off-
The project is part of a cial officials, Ámbito reported on August 26. In shore facility, it added.
wider effort to make more remarks reported by the financial daily, he said
transportation capacity the facility would be the country’s largest oil The bigger picture
available to producers export outlet. González stressed that the terminal would be
working at Vaca Muerta
oilfields. The terminal will cost a total of $1.26bn, part of a wider system serving the country’s oil
with costs split between a $600mn onshore industry.
WHAT NEXT: facility and a $660mn offshore facility, Ámbito That is, he said it would serve as the terminus
The outcome of Argenti- reported. The onshore facility will consist of a of a pipeline that YPF will construct to facilitate
na’s economic stabili- storage depot housing 20 storage tanks with a exports of oil from fields in Vaca Muerta, an
sation measures will be capacity of 1mn cubic metres, equivalent to unconventional hydrocarbon formation located
at least as important to 6.2mn barrels, and will be built on a 2.5-square mostly in Argentina’s Neuquén Province. Vaca
Vaca Muerta’s future as km site on the coast, it said. Muerta is one of the largest shale basins in the
the pipeline and terminal The offshore component, meanwhile, will world, containing both crude and gas, and
projects. consist of a pipeline connecting the onshore Argentina’s government has estimated its total
storage depot to a monobuoy – that is, a loading oil reserves at more than 27bn barrels.

P4 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 35 31•August•2022