The Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, analyzed with the authorities and technical teams of YPF the recovery of the company and the main challenges for the coming years were analyzed, the economic portfolio reported this Saturday.
The meeting, which was held this Friday at the Palacio de Hacienda, It is part of the agenda that Minister Guzmán is carrying out to accelerate the development of the energy sector in the country.
Guzmán highlighted the importance of YPF’s role in supporting the development of the opportunities presented by the hydrocarbon sector in Argentina; and the directors of YPF highlighted the policies promoted by the national government such as debt restructuring, the Gas.Ar Plan, and initiatives to consolidate the economic reactivation, which generated greater certainty and allowed the company’s investment program to be leveraged.
About the meeting
At the meeting, YPF’s economic and financial improvements from 2021 were emphasized; It was noted that the company’s Capex increased 70% year-on-year, and that for the first time in five years it was possible to compensate for the natural decline of wells with a 14% growth in production between the last quarter of 2021 and the same period of 2020.
The company’s directors indicated that these numbers are explained both by the exponential increase in the production of shale-oil and shale-gas (+62% and +99% in the same period, thanks to a 79% increase in the speed of fracturing and 20% reduction in development costs), as well as the results in the tertiary recovery of conventional production in mature wells such as Manantiales Behr (where after 90 years of activity the record of 25,000 barrels per day was surpassed).
YPF directors stated that the company has increased its Ebidta to nearly US$4,000 million and reduced its net debt by more than US$1,000 million, which allows it to have the lowest debt ratio since 2015.
In this line, the company announced a Capex of US$ 3,700 million for 2022, greater than any other company in the country, with which it is expected to obtain an increase of 8% in production, which represents the largest organic year-on-year increase in production since 1997.
The directors also affirmed that the projections for the company and the hydrocarbon sector are promising in the medium term, and highlighted the need for the public and private sectors to cooperate to develop new infrastructure works.
In this sense, it was stated that with these works YPF could double its oil production in five years, increase gas production by 50% and double its generation of renewable energies.
Finally, the directors argued that, with the promotion of new infrastructure works, YPF could produce by 2026 more than one million barrels per day of crude oil and 150 million m3/d of natural gas, generating more than US$ 10,000 million per year of energy balance surplus and promote more than US$ 40,000 accumulated in five years of upstream and downstream investments.
Meeting participants
The minister was accompanied by the chief of staff Melina Mallamace; the Secretary of Economic Policy, Fernando Morra; the Undersecretary of Energy Planning of the Ministry of Energy, Santiago López Osornio; the director representing the National State in YPF, Demian Panigo; and the Undersecretary of Financing, Ramiro Tosi.
Representing the company were the president Pablo González; CEO Sergio Affronti; CFO Alejandro Lew; and the Vice Presidents of Downstream and Gas and Energy, Mauricio Martin and Santiago Martínez Tanoira, respectively.
