Argentina will launch a key pipeline to export oil to Chile

Argentina announced this Tuesday that in October it will launch the new Vaca Muerta Norte pipeline, which is in its final section of construction and will be key for the export of oil to Chili.

“In our subsoil is the most important wealth we have to develop Argentina for the next 150 years”The Argentine Minister of Economy and candidate for president, Sergio Massa, said this Tuesday at an event at the head of the pipeline, in the Argentine province of Neuquén (southwest).

With an investment of US$ 250 million, an extension of 150 kilometers and a transportation capacity of 160,000 barrels per day, since its launch in October the Vaca Muerta Norte pipeline will expand by fifty% the current oil transportation capacity from the Neuquén Basin.

The pipeline extends from the central zone of the areas under concession of the YPF oil company, controlled by the Argentine State, in the colossal unconventional hydrocarbon formation of Vaca Muerta to the Puerto Hernández node, in the Neuquén town of Rincón de los Willows.

In Puerto Hernández it connects with the Trasandino Pipeline, used for the export of crude oil to Chile.

The new work will also increase the supply of light oil to the YPF refinery in Luján de Cuyo, in the Argentine province of Mendoza (west), improving the supply of fuel to the entire central and northern area of ​​Argentina.

Pablo González, president of YPF, highlighted that the company is once again exporting oil by pipeline to Chile after 16 years, with sales estimated for 2024 for US$ 3,758 million.

YPF also plans to build the Vaca Muerta Sur oil pipeline in 2024, which, with an extension of 600 kilometers and an investment of US$ 3,000 million, will link Vaca Muerta with Punta Colorada, on the Atlantic, in the province of Río Negro, where there will be a crude oil loading terminal on large ships and which will be the most important in South America for oil exports.

Vaca Muerta, the world’s second largest unconventional gas reserve and the fourth largest oil reserve of this type, has reached a massive development level of 10%, which already allows a daily production of about 300,000 barrels of oil and about 80 million cubic meters of gas.