Argentina approves US$365 million RIGI project to expand Mega gas complex

Argentina · ECONOMY

Buenos Aires, 26 August 2026: Resolution 1381/2026 brings the Ampliación Mega project into the RIGI; a Citi banker says mining investment is running at record levels; the chemical industry talks of a fifth petrochemical wave.

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s government on Wednesday, 26 August 2026, formally approved the entry of the Ampliación Mega project into the Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI), authorising a US$365 million expansion of natural gas liquids production. The Argentina RIGI project was cleared through Resolution 1381/2026 of the Economy Ministry, published in Wednesday’s Boletín Oficial, which classified it under the oil and gas sector and set 28 July 2026 as the official adhesion date.

What the Argentina RIGI project approval covers

The applicant is Compañía Mega SA Sucursal Dedicada (CMSD), a dedicated branch of Compañía Mega. Its plan provides for total investment of US$365,398,669, of which US$359,164,361 counts as computable assets. To meet the regime’s fast-disbursement requirement, the company committed to invest US$121,613,889 in the first year and US$152,709,106 in the second, with a deadline of 1 October 2027 to complete the minimum computable investment and commercial operations scheduled to begin on 28 February 2029. The project’s useful life is projected at 18 years.

The works target three points of the Mega industrial complex: the Loma La Lata separation plant in Neuquén province, the Loma La Lata–Bahía Blanca liquids pipeline crossing Neuquén, Río Negro, La Pampa and Buenos Aires provinces, and the fractionation plant in Bahía Blanca. The goal is to add 1,500 tonnes per day of natural gas liquids (NGL) output to the 5,500 tonnes per day the complex currently produces. Because it expands a pre-existing facility, the Argentina RIGI project requires CMSD to operate independently and keep separate accounts, with a monitoring and traceability system ensuring that tax, customs and foreign-exchange incentives apply only to the new works.

Local content and incentives

Under the plan, 60 percent of spending on suppliers, goods and infrastructure during construction and operation will go to local firms, triple the 20 percent floor required by law, according to the resolution as reported by Noticias Argentinas. The project also includes estimates of direct and indirect job creation with local integration.

In return, the dedicated branch gains access to the incentives of Law 27,742, including an approved list of capital goods, computing and telecommunications equipment that can be imported under customs franchises. Tax agency ARCA will create a special tax identification number for the branch, and the central bank will apply the corresponding foreign-exchange incentives after finding no impediments to their implementation. Sector outlet Shale24 describes Ampliación Mega as the first liquids-fractionation project admitted to the RIGI, a regime that now counts more than 20 registered projects. The Argentina RIGI project had been authorised by the regime’s evaluation committee in late July before Wednesday’s formal resolution.

Citi says mining investment among world’s highest

The Argentina RIGI project approval landed on the same day that a senior Citi banker described Argentina as one of the most sought-after venues in the world for mining investment financing. “Argentina, at this moment, is going through the highest level of mining investment activity in its history and in the world. Many banks are dedicating a great deal of time and attention to Argentina,” William Husband, Citi’s global head of metals and mining corporate banking, said in an international talk on critical minerals attended by Bloomberg Línea.

Husband credited the RIGI and the new fiscal regime with removing obstacles that once made it hard to recover capital once projects began generating cash flow. As evidence of Argentina’s access to long-term finance, he cited the 11-year, roughly US$1,175 million multi-agency loan Citi structured in March for Rio Tinto’s Rincón lithium project in Salta, one of the first major developments financed under the RIGI, and a US$412 million financing for the first phase of POSCO’s Sal de Oro lithium project between Catamarca and Salta.

Husband noted that Latin America holds about 49 percent of the world’s copper resources and close to a third of its lithium, while cautioning that China dominates most global processing of critical minerals and the region must turn resources into financeable projects. Citi estimates the world must finance US$1.65 trillion of critical-minerals investment by 2035, including about US$780 billion for copper and US$340 billion for lithium, and notes that Latin America accounts for 41 percent of global copper output and 45 percent of the world’s pipeline of new copper projects. The bank projects regional production will grow almost 50 percent by 2030, with Argentina’s expansion strongly tied to the RIGI.

Vaca Muerta’s fifth wave of petrochemicals

The NGL capacity that the Mega expansion will add is exactly the feedstock Argentina’s chemical industry says can power what it calls a fifth wave of petrochemical investment. Marking the Day of Argentine Petrochemicals on 26 August, 76 years after a synthetic toluene plant opened in Campana in 1950, the Chamber of the Chemical and Petrochemical Industry (CIQyP) argued this week that Vaca Muerta’s unconventional gas, unusually rich in ethane, propane, butane and natural gasoline, can anchor new production chains in ethylene and polyethylene, methanol, ammonia, urea and fertilisers.

“Chemistry and petrochemicals do not only transform raw materials; they also transform Argentina’s development possibilities,” said Jorge de Zavaleta, the chamber’s executive director, in comments carried by EconoJournal. The chamber says petrochemicals account for 4.2 percent of GDP, about 19 percent of manufacturing exports and more than 70,000 direct and 280,000 indirect jobs across eight industrial hubs, more than 70 percent of them small and medium-sized companies.

Industry executives at the Argentine Petrochemical Institute (IPA) have made the same case, noting that gas in Neuquén costs about US$2.50 per million BTU against US$12 to US$14 in Brazil, and projecting ethane output near five million tonnes a year by 2030. For the fifth wave to materialise, the chamber lists regulatory stability, transport and logistics infrastructure, financing and local supplier development as preconditions, the same mix of incentives and infrastructure that the Argentina RIGI project structure is designed to lock in.

What comes next

For Mega, the clock now runs on the disbursement schedule: US$121.6 million in the first year and US$152.7 million in the second, with the full minimum investment due by October 2027 and start-up targeted for February 2029. Regulators will watch the separability controls closely, since RIGI benefits must not leak into the pre-existing complex.

For the government, the approval is a proof point that the RIGI can attract midstream and processing investment, not only upstream and mining megaprojects. And for investors weighing Argentina this week, from Citi’s mining clients to petrochemical boards, the message from Buenos Aires is that the Argentina RIGI project pipeline is moving from registration to execution.

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Sources

• noticiasargentinas.com
• www.boletinoficial.gob.ar
• www.ambito.com
• www.bloomberglinea.com
• econojournal.com.ar
• www.shale24.com
• mase.lmneuquen.com

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