After 27 years, Argentina has surpassed its last national oil production record. In October, The country reached 859,500 barrels of crude oil per day It left behind a mark in 1998 when 847 thousand barrels were produced.
This progress is attributed to the high productivity that Vaca Muerta continues to demonstrate: Unconventional production in the Neuquén Basin is growing at an annual rate of 30%This makes it possible to compensate for the decline recorded in traditional production by 7% in the rest of the basins.
at the moment, Vaca Muerta already contributes 60% of the country’s total supply, More than 515 thousand barrels per day.
This happens Although the global price of a barrel fell by 14% year on year in 2025 (from US$76 to US$63 in Brent reference). But the energy sector increased its production again.
One of the main factors was expansion olddelvall pipeline, This led to a doubling of transport capacity from Vaca Muerta to Bahía Blanca: rising from 225,000 to 540,000 barrels per day. The work has succeeded in overcoming one of the major bottlenecks Industry and reduce logistics costs.
In 2021, Vaca Muerta produced 280,000 barrels per day. In just four years, production nearly doubledEven in the context of economic fluctuations and exchange restrictions.
Of the current total, the sector allocates about 500,000 barrels per day for local consumption of gasoline and diesel, while the sector allocates about 500,000 barrels per day for local consumption of gasoline and diesel. The surplus is exported. Among foreign sales, 90 thousand barrels per day are sent to Chile via the Transandino (Otasa) oil pipeline.
“Thanks to the Vaca Muerta law and clear rules for the private sector, the energy sector continues to grow,” the Department of Energy stressed.
It adopts unconventional production In horizontal well drilling, not vertical, in use Hydraulic fracturingIt is a method that consists of injecting large amounts of water and sand to break up the rocks and keep open the cracks that allow oil and gas to be extracted.
Looking to 2030, The sector plans to reach a production of 1.5 million barrels per day, including one million barrels for export.. To this end, companies warn that it will be necessary to remove some “growing pains”: “positive” bottlenecks, resulting from the proliferation of projects and supplier shortages. The government points out that “in the United States there are a greater number of competing service companies, which leads to lower costs.”
today, Drilling a well in Argentina costs 40% more in dollars than it does in the United States. Added to this are the high logistical costs, as the condition of the roads, both in Neuquén and in the rest of the country, remains deficient.
An example is the provision of sand, which is a major input to Hydraulic fracturing. Most of it comes from Entre Rios, which It is transported in trucks. On average, Drilling a well requires about 500 truckloads of sand. With about 62 wells drilled, this means approx 31,000 road trips Which, for a large part of their route, is still one-way and two-way.
The production record achieved leaves a bittersweet taste. While in 1990 Brazil produced 631 thousand barrels per day, Today it exceeds 3.3 million; Only the state of Rio de Janeiro concentrates 85% of this total.
“Brazil has achieved very significant growth in the last thirty years. And This is due to the continuation of the state’s policy on hydrocarbon issues Since the beginning of the 1990s, it has been maintained despite changes in management. “Brazil could be the way forward for Argentina,” says Nicolas Arceo, director of consultancy Economía & Energía (EyE) and a former advisor to Axel Kiselov when he was economy minister.
In addition to the sustainable state policy, Brazil has ensured Aligning domestic crude oil prices with global values.
“Countries compete to attract international investments. In Argentina We are competing with other basins, such as Guyana, Colombia or Brazil itself. The continuation of prices in line with world prices has allowed the Brazilian state oil company to have the resources necessary to pay a very significant level of investment in the hydrocarbon sector over the past three decades. Petrobras would not have been able to develop the pre-salt area without income to finance increased investmentsArceo concluded.
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