Vaca Muerta’s oil becomes space in the world, but Trump challenges Argentina

The oil production Crude in Argentina has been growing by accelerated steps since 2017 and last year reached its best brand of the last 20 yearsthanks to investments in Vaca Muerta. The same dynamic follows natural gas.

With the internal market supplied, each new production barrel is destined for exports; while in gas infrastructure works allow evacuating the extraction of Neuquén and replaces billions of dollars of imports.

In this way, In 2024 the country had the surplus in the commercial balance of the largest energy sector of the last 18 years, with a favorable balance of US $ 5,668 millionForeign sales product for US $ 9,677 million and purchases outside for US $ 4,009 million, according to the Ministry of Energy.

The annual difference is approximately equivalent to the maturities of external debt that the treasure had to pay in January with the private creditors, so The new engine that is Vaca Muerta for the Argentine economy represents an improvement in the international reservation position of the Central Bank (BCRA) and a consequent fall in the country risk rate, which in turn feeds the attractiveness of investments.

The main consultants expected until the beginning of the year that this result would be extended in 2025 to about US $ 8,000 million, mainly due to the increase in crude oil exports, which could now have a decrease in their prices for Energy policy of the brand new president of the United States, Donald Trumpthat under the motto “drill, baby, drill“(drilling) again gave free way to the mega new oil investment projects for lower energy prices and make internal costs fall.

Nicolás Gadano, chief economist Empiria Consultantsprojects an energy surplus of US $ 6.8 billion, with exports growing in volumes although with lower prices and an alarm signal if the oil falls sustainably below US $ 70 per barrel.

Meanwhile, Daniel Dreizzen, director of Aleph Energy and former Secretary of Energy Planning (2018), stretches to a favorable balance for US $ 9,000 million And he still does not see a clear effect on the energy market of Trump’s first measures.

For Alberto Cisneros Lavaller, CEO of Global Business Consultants (GBC)despite the fact that Vaca Muerta’s oil is making space in the world, the strong entry of Argentina to international energy markets will be with liquefied natural gas (LNG) and will not happen before 2030, when the Trump Presidency in the United States.

According to the data of the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INDEC), Argentina’s export products represented 12.1% of the country’s sales last year and grew by 22.3% year -on -year in nominal prices. By way of comparison, The primary products of the field and manufactures of agricultural origin had an incidence of 57%.

YPF’s president and CEO’s dream, Horacio Marín, is that energy exports climb up to US $ 30,000 million annually around 2031from crude oil and the gas of Vaca Muerta. It would be more than tripling current values ​​in just seven years, but the sector would also be far from what agribusiness can sell, around US $ 45,000 million per year without drought.

The liquidation of field currencies has a markedly seasonal character (April-July), due to the high harvest, while the energy does not have that phenomenon, but the owners of the exports of the new projects that enter the incentive regime to the large Investments (Rigi) will not have the obligation to leave dollars in the country, they warn both in official offices and in the offices of recognized economists.

During the past year the energy goods that were most sold abroad were the crude oil, carafes, gasoline and fuels for ships and airplanes and its main destinations, Chile, United States, Paraguay and Brazil.

On the side of energy imports, which fell 49.4% year -on -year in nominal prices, low sulfur diesel was bought for refineries and thermal plants, natural gas, liquefied gas and electrical energy of the United States, Bolivia, Brazil, Brazil, Great Britain, United Arab Emirates and the Netherlands.

The rehabilitation of the trans -Andean pipeline (Otasa) for 2023 in northern Neuquén, after 15 years of cutting oil exports to Chile, was a gigantic step to consolidate the change in trend that predominated from 2010 for Argentina and that He signed with the energy deficit a decade of economic stagnation due to the lack of dollars.

The construction of oil evacuation infrastructure is vital in that regard. Valley pipelines (Oldelval) will end in the first stage of 2025 the Duplicate Plus project, which will expand in almost 315,000 barrels per day (BPD) the transport capacity from the Neuquina basin to Puerto Rosales, on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

Between the end of 2026 and early 2027, the commercial authorization of the project that will sustain the country’s hope of making the tendency to be net exporters of energy: The South Cow Muerta Oil Pipeline (VMOS)for which the main crude oil producing companies were associated in Argentina, such as YPF, PAE, Vista, Pluspetrol, Pampa Energía, and the Multinationals Chevron and Shell.

The pipe will begin with a capacity to 180,000 barrels per day and will quickly climb to 550,000 bpd, and then go by scales to at least 750,000 transport bpd between Neuquén and the coast of Río Negro from 2028.

With current prices it would be the equivalent of some US $ 20,500 million of exports per year of crude oil only for the VMOS, although a drop of US $ 10 per barrel – as expected by the administration of energy information of the United States (EIA) for 2026 – would imply A loss of almost US $ 3,000 million annually in the Muerta Sur Vaca, just its construction cost.