Norwegian oil company Equinor will be able to drill a well that is part of an ‘offshore’ project in the North Argentina Basin (CAN) that will take place between next December and June of next year, after the Argentine Government gave it authorization this Tuesday .
A resolution of the Secretariat for Climate Change published this Tuesday in the Official Gazette authorized the “Drilling project for an exploratory well, called ‘Argerich-1’ in the North Argentina Basin (Block CAN_100)” in “the period between December 15, 2023 and June 15, 2024″.
The project had been approved by that secretariat on December 6, after the Argentine Justice annulled a precautionary measure that stopped offshore oil exploration in the area.
The authorization responds to Equinor’s request on May 4, where it raised the need to carry out the ‘offshore’ project, accompanying the corresponding sensitivity analysis.
This ‘offshore’ project sparked a controversy in Argentina at the end of December 2021, when the Argentine Ministry of the Environment gave the green light to the seismic exploration of hydrocarbons in three CAN blocks located between 307 and 443 kilometers from the coast of Mar del Plata, the largest vacation center on the Atlantic coast of Argentina and which lives off tourism and fishing.
Equinor It is the operator of the three areas, although in the main block, CAN 100 -of 15,000 square kilometers-, it is associated with YPF, controlled by the Argentine State, and Shell, and in another, CAN 114, only with YPF.
In January 2022, a collective amparo action was initiated to achieve the cessation of seismic exploration and oil exploitation in the area, and finally, in December 2022, the Federal Chamber of Mar del Plata allowed the project, urging the administrative authorities to keep permanentlya maximum level of control” about project activities.
The resolution published this Tuesday added that Equinor Argentina BV Argentina Branch You must report immediatelyonce they are known, the exact dates on which the inherent actions and works will be carried out” to the exploratory project.
Source: EFE
Source: Gestion
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