The Argentine oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF) yesterday signed an agreement with Chile’s Empresa Nacional del Petróleo (ENAP) for the resumption of crude oil exports from the Vaca Muerta oilfield in the south of the country, reported the state news agency Télam.
The official agency indicated that oil deliveries through the Oleoducto Trasandino (Otasa) pipeline system that connects both countries, which had been inactive since 2006, will take place between May and June.
“The contract will be extended for about 45 days, during which a purchase of about 41,000 barrels per day is considered, which will be delivered between May and June next”, added the official communication.
ENAP said in a communiqué that “this is a normal purchase operation which, however, has the relevance of being the initial step for the resumption of the energy-oil interconnection between the two countries in the long term”.
“This commercial agreement is one more step towards the objective of starting up the trans-Andean oil pipeline and, as ENAP, it will also enable us to carry out early tests of crude imports from Argentina, and on the logistical and operational side, it will provide us with essential information for making future decisions”, added the Chilean company.
The unconventional oil and gas geological formation “Vaca Muerta”, located in the so-called “Neuquén basin”, registered record efficiency in 2022, resulting in a growth in activity of between 45 and 47 percent.
For the Argentine government, the reactivation of crude oil dispatches through the pipeline “will allow increasing the incremental oil transportation capacity” produced in that region of southwestern Argentina.