Page 13 - LatAmOil Week 07 2023

LatAmOil ARGENTINA LatAmOil

“This is an enabling MoU. They have gas [assets] 2019 after determining that the areas it had sur-
... so we will explore investing there,” Singh said veyed in the Assam-Arakan, Cambay, Cauvery
at the conference in Bangalore. He did not say and Krishna Godavari basins did not contain
whether the parties had identified any specific commercial quantities of hydrocarbons. ™
targets for future cooperation.
Argentina is currently extracting gas from
both conventional and unconventional fields,
but it expects unconventional sites in the Vaca
Muerta shale basin to make up the largest share
of future production growth.
Vaca Muerta is one of the largest shale for-
mations in the world. It is around the size of Bel-
gium and contains about 308 trillion cubic feet
(8.722 trillion cubic metres) of shale gas, accord-
ing to estimates from the US Energy Informa-
tion Administration (EIA).
ONGC has some experience in the area of
onshore shale exploration. It mounted a five-
year exploration programme of its own in 2014
but ultimately wound the campaign down in Representatives of OVL and YPF met in Bangalore on February 9 (Photo: OVL)

ECUADOR
Ongoing corruption probe dislodges

new general manager of Petroecuador

HUGO Aguiar, the general manager of Ecua- the government will in due time present three
dor’s national oil company (NOC) Petroecua- individual candidates as possible replacements.
dor, resigned from his post on February 10 after No information was available as of press time
his home and offices were searched by the attor- on the outcome of the search of Aguiar’s home
ney general’s office in the course of a corruption and offices.
investigation. Ecuador’s Coordinating Company of Pub-
Energy Minister Fernando Santos confirmed lic Companies (EMCO) has been investigating
reports of Aguiar’s departure, telling Reuters on senior officials at state-owned companied in
February 10 that the NOC’s board of directors response to reports of possible corruption and
was preparing to convene a meeting to name bribery.
a replacement. “Tomorrow we’ll meet in an That probe led to the resignation of Aguiar’s
extraordinary session at 10:00 a.m.,” he said. predecessor earlier this year – and then to Agu-
“There we will accept [the resignation] and iar’s appointment to the general manager’s posi-
name an interim [general manager]. We’ll name tion at Petroecuador on February 2. ™
an interim so we can calmly look at the profile
for a definitive replacement.”
Reuters also reported that it had seen a copy
of the letter Aguiar had written to the coordina-
tor of Ecuador’s state-owned companies. In the
document, which was shared with the Energy
Ministry and the National Planning Secretary,
the Petroecuador chief announced his plan for
“voluntary and irrevocable resignation,” it said.
Santos did not comment immediately on
who Aguiar’s replacement might be. On Febru-
ary 11, though, Ecuador’s government issued a
statement revealing that Maria Elisa Soledispa
had been named interim general manager. Sol-
edispa, an engineer with 12 years of experience
in the oil industry who has been serving as the
NOC’s marketing manager, is the first woman
to hold the post. According to the statement, Soledispa now is serving as interim CEO (Photo: Petroecuador)

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