President Alberto Fernández will visit this Thursday the operations of the oil company YPF in Vaca Muerta, province of Neuquén, to start the construction of the Néstor Kirchner Trunk Gas Pipeline, a work that the national government considers essential to be able to expand the incremental gas transportation capacity that is projected from this unconventional formationit was officially reported.
The event is scheduled for 12 noon in the Loma Campana area, an emblematic place not only for being the company’s largest unconventional operation, but also because it marked the beginning of the massive developments in the formation after the agreement with the American Chevron , 10 years after the recovery of state control of the company during the management of former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
There, next to the president the presence of the governor of Neuquén, Omar Gutiérrez, is expected, national authorities, governors of hydrocarbon-producing provinces, representatives of the workers, directors of the production companies and YPF authorities.
Official sources specified that during the meeting in Vaca Muerta the construction of the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline will be formally announced, the largest energy work of the current administration and the most important in the last 40 years in terms of transporting natural gas through pipelines, which will be essential to expand the evacuation capacity of unconventional gas.
the new pipeline
The new 558-kilometre gas pipeline will be built in two stages, of which the first will be launched, which includes the route between the entry point in the Neuquén town of Treatyén to the western Buenos Aires town of Salliqueló.
the new pipeline It will allow to increase the transport capacity by 24MMm3/day with an approximate cost of US$ 1,500 million and it will be ffinanced with funds from the treasury, and from the Solidarity Contribution of the great riches.
the second stage It will allow natural gas to reach the south of the province of Santa Fe, in the town of San Jerónimo, which will open the possibility of reaching large urban centers and industries in the center and north of the country, as well as the possibility of exporting to Brazil. and northern Chile.
New round of the Gas.Ar Plan
After the launch of the new main gas pipeline, the secretary of energy, Darío Martínez, He assured that the national government is analyzing launching a new round of the Gas.Ar Plan to generate a horizon for the investments of the oil companies interested in the new scenario that will open the work.
“We are studying a new round of the Gas.Ar Plan for the new volumes that the new gas pipeline will allow to transport,” said Martínez, in press statements amid the process of launching the the tender for the work that will require an estimated investment of more than US$ 1,500 million.
Martínez expressed that “the mechanism to choose depends on factors such as the times of commissioning of the new works, and their different stages, the volumes associated with each moment of the work and its objective transport capacity, and the times necessary for that the industry makes its investments and generates the necessary additional production”.
In this regard, the official stressed that “the challenge for the entire sector is to carry out this production effort adequately and in coordination with the pace of execution of the works that IEASA is leading and in charge of, in order to obtain the best possible result in terms of substitution of imports of LNG and gas oil, with Argentine gas”.
Martinez explained that the positive results in the increase in production are part of a second stage of measures like the start of the construction of the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline and the set of orbras of the Gas Pipeline System Transport.Ar National Production.
“The gas pipeline is a strategic work that is going to generate a virtuous circle so that production continues to increase, so that there is more gas for the industries and more work for Argentines, in addition, it will allow us to save foreign currency that today is destined to import LNG”.
In addition to the emblematic Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline as the main work, the National Production Tranport.Ar Gas Pipeline System will entail the expansion of the NEUBA II Gas Pipeline (Ordoqui), the construction of the final sections in AMBA Sur and Norte, the reversal of the North Gas Pipeline in stages I and II, and the expansion of the Central West Gas Pipeline.
At the same time, the producing companies detailed to the Secretary of Energy and the representatives of the industry the status and expectations of investment and production of each one of them, assured the energy portfolio after a meeting between Martínez and representatives of the Argentine Industrial Union. and the oil companies.
They all agreed that for this year they have increased their production and injection volumes into the system, that since the end of 2021 they have been closing supply contracts for this year with their industrial clients and that they permanently try to conclude contracts of more than a year, which so far it has had little receptivity among industrial customers.
