Argentina Sets Oil Record as Its Export Ranking Shifts
Argentina · OIL
Key Facts
- —Argentina oil production July 2026 output averaged 916,200 barrels a day, an all-time high.
- —Shale share Unconventional wells supplied 71.08 percent of national crude in July 2026.
- —Product ranking Crude oil led all single export products in the first half of 2026.
- —Complex ranking The soy complex still topped oil, at US$9.08 billion against US$8.12 billion.
- —Lithium Exports rose 186.3 percent and entered the ten largest complexes for the first time.
Record July output and a reshuffled export table put crude at the front of one ranking, but not of the other.
Argentina oil production reached 916,200 barrels a day in July, the highest monthly figure on record. The Secretaría de Energía published the data on August 24, and Vaca Muerta supplied most of it.
A record month for Argentina oil production
Argentina oil production averaged 916,200 barrels a day in July 2026. That was 17.2 percent above the same month a year earlier.
The Secretaría de Energía, the national energy secretariat, published the monthly output tables on August 24. The industry shortens the unit to bpd, which simply means barrels per day.
June had already set a record at roughly 914,900 barrels a day. July added only a small increase, but it kept the series climbing.
Natural gas output reached 158.8 million cubic metres a day in the same month. Gas has grown far more slowly than crude this year.
Vaca Muerta does almost all the lifting
The Vaca Muerta shale formation produced 643,100 barrels a day in July. That was 26.4 percent more than a year earlier.
Unconventional wells supplied 648,902 barrels a day nationwide, or 71.08 percent of the total. A year earlier the shale share stood at 63.33 percent.
Conventional fields therefore contributed roughly 264,000 barrels a day. Those older basins are shrinking, and shale growth is covering their decline.
Neuquén province alone pumped 658,639 barrels a day, a provincial record. Its monthly gain was larger than the gain for the country as a whole.
Shale wells accounted for 97.36 percent of Neuquén’s provincial output in July. Investment there now concentrates on a handful of high-yield blocks.
How the record compares with the 1990s
The previous peak dated from 1998, when the country produced about 847,000 barrels a day. That mark stood untouched for 27 years.
It fell in October 2025, when national output reached 859,500 barrels a day. Argentina oil production has set fresh highs repeatedly since then.
So July is a genuine all-time high, not merely a recent best. The official series used for the comparison runs back at least to 1998.
The gap with the old peak is now close to 70,000 barrels a day. Almost all of that difference is shale oil from a single formation.
Oil versus soy depends on the yardstick
Two different rankings are circulating, and they do not say the same thing. One compares single products, the other compares whole export complexes.
At single-product level, crude oil led the first half of 2026 with US$4.69 billion. Corn followed with US$4.17 billion and soy meal with US$4.16 billion.
Soybeans themselves came tenth at US$1.02 billion. On that measure crude oil outranked every farm product for the first time.
That product ranking uses trade data from INDEC, compiled by the Instituto Argentina Grande. INDEC is the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos, the national statistics agency.
Add the soy products together and the picture reverses at once. Soy meal, soy oil and beans came to roughly US$8.35 billion in the half.
The complex ranking still favours soy
INDEC also groups shipments into export complexes, which bundle a raw material with its processed forms. On that basis soy stayed first in the first half of 2026.
The soy complex exported US$9.08 billion, up 5.7 percent year on year. The petroleum and petrochemical complex came second with US$8.12 billion.
That energy figure was a record for a series starting in 2002, and it rose 43.7 percent. Crude oil alone accounted for US$4.7 billion of it.
So oil leads on products but still trails soy on complexes. Both statements rest on the same INDEC release, published in late August.
Lithium enters the top ten and cars slip
The lithium complex exported US$1.13 billion in the first half, a rise of 186.3 percent. That lifted it into the ten largest complexes for the first time.
A year earlier lithium ranked seventeenth with US$393 million. Lithium carbonate made up about 88 percent of those shipments.
The automotive complex slipped from third place to fourth. It had exported US$3.98 billion in the first half of 2025.
Maize took third with US$4.24 billion, while gold and silver reached US$3.5 billion. The ten largest complexes together covered 78.4 percent of all exports.
What it means for the trade balance
Crude oil exports reached US$5.72 billion between January and July, up 59.2 percent. That was 9.8 percent of everything the country sold abroad.
Fuel and energy exports over the same seven months came to about US$9 billion. The energy trade surplus reached US$6.85 billion, some 84 percent higher than a year earlier.
The overall goods surplus for the first half was US$6.94 billion, 1.1 percent lower. Imports grew 36.1 percent, which offset an export gain of 24.6 percent.
The Banco Central de la República Argentina set its A3500 reference rate at 1,512.7498 pesos per dollar on August 27. Those crude sales are worth about 8.66 trillion pesos (US$5.72 billion) at that rate.
Energy is now the fastest-growing source of export dollars, while farming still supplies more of them. That balance shifts with every harvest and every new pipeline.
What YPF expects next
YPF, the state-controlled producer once called Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, drives much of the shale build-out. Its chairman and chief executive is Horacio Marín.
Speaking at the Expo EFI conference in Buenos Aires on April 29, Marín predicted a further jump. He said the country would break the million-barrel mark and become an oil country.
His Spanish wording was that la Argentina se convertirá en un país petrolero. A widely repeated line about a country with oil turning into an oil country remains unconfirmed.
Argentina oil production would need to rise about 9 percent to reach that million. Marín put domestic demand near 550,000 barrels a day, leaving the rest for export.
Frequently Asked Questions
How high is Argentina oil production right now?
Argentina oil production averaged 916,200 barrels a day in July 2026. That was the highest monthly figure in the official series.
Did oil really overtake soy as the top export?
It depends on the measure used. Crude oil led the single-product ranking, but the soy complex still exported more in total.
Where does the extra crude come from?
Almost all of the growth comes from the Vaca Muerta shale formation in Neuquén province. Conventional fields elsewhere are still declining.
Connected Coverage
Sources
- www.argentina.gob.ar
- www.infobae.com
- www.shale24.com
- www.mejorenergia.com.ar
- www.iprofesional.com
- econojournal.com.ar
- www.infobae.com
- www.ambito.com
- www.iprofesional.com
- runrunenergetico.com
- www.indec.gob.ar
- www.cronista.com
- eleconomista.com.ar
- api.bcra.gob.ar
- riotimesonline.com
- riotimesonline.com
- riotimesonline.com
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