The president and CEO of YPF,
Horacio Marín
, transmits hope and denotes the ability to work. He invites us to dream of a prosperous and economically stable Argentina.
The oil company, which operates as a private company but is managed by the state, could begin - together with
Malaysia's Petronas
-
exports of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in 2026 or 2027
. And thanks to the mega
Vaca Muerta Sur Pipeline
, it will free the bottleneck for the transportation of crude oil
starting in July 2026.
Interviewed at the "Vaca Muerta Insights" event - organized by
EconoJournal
and
La Mañana de Neuquén
-, the former manager of Tecpetrol today
sounds like a statesman
, who constantly draws applause from the directors of other oil companies for the size of his company. proposal, even though he speaks with a
relaxed and frontal style
,
unusual in the energy industry.
Marín, a former tennis player who experiences his time at YPF as "playing Wimbledon", is the oil executive that Javier Milei's government chose to "value" the company
before dividing its businesses and taking it to privatization
in the medium term. just as was the libertarian's original plan.
However, the manager today is looking for an oil company with "professional" and efficient management, focused on the most profitable segments as a spearhead so that Argentina can have
energy exports worth 30 billion dollars in 2030
. Far from privatization.
YPF, a leading company in the sector, has several milestones on the way to turning energy into a sustained supplier of foreign currency to the Argentine economy, without the fluctuations of the climate that the agroindustrial sector has.
The first will be the
Andes project
, which consists of
the sale of 55 mature conventional fields
, a process that Marín estimated
would end no later than September of this year
, in just over 4 months. There would be at least
60 companies interested.
Relaxed and enthusiastic, the president of YPF went further and charted the path for the production, transportation and exports of Vaca Muerta crude oil. "
From July 1, 2026 there will be no more bottlenecks for export
: the Vaca Muerta Sur Pipeline will have a crude oil transportation capacity of 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) at its peak; Oleoductos del Valle (Oldelval), 390,000 bpd ; and the Trasandino Oil Pipeline (Otasa), 110,000 bpd added, they yield 1,200,000 barrels," he assured.
The Vaca Muerta South Pipeline will be tendered
privately
in these months and its construction also involves building a deep-water port in Punta Colorada, on the Atlantic coast of Río Negro.
Another former Techint
is working on this project : Gustavo Gallino
, one of the engineers in charge of the President Néstor Kirchner Gasduct (GPNK), which under the supervision of Energía Argentina (Enarsa) was done in 10 months.
At the same time, it will advance with another project that will put Argentina before the eyes of the world: the
"Argentina LNG"
, to export liquefied gas that is produced in Vaca Muerta and could arrive in a liquid state (cooled to 161 degrees below zero to compress its volume) by
ships to Europe and Asia.
In 2026 or 2027 exports of liquefied gas could begin only with Petronas, while by 2030 the entire associated industry (about 4 or 5 large gas producers) would have two floating liquefaction vessels with a capacity of 40 million m3 per day -MMm3 /d-. And in 2031, a new capacity of 80 MMm3/d, for a total of 120 MMm3/d, which would mean
doubling current production, but
only to allocate that part to the external market.
The production of liquefied gas requires the construction of at least
three gas pipelines "dedicated" to that project
, similar to the Vaca Muerta gas pipeline built last year.
NE