Aguada de la Arena, a block YPF brought into its portfolio only last year, surged 60.3% in May to 4.819 MMm³/d, climbing three places to second in the company's gas ranking. The figures come from a survey by the consultant Fernando Salvetti.
YPF-operated gas output averaged 32.33 MMm³/d for the month, up 9.2% from April but down 4.08% year-on-year. The monthly rebound is sequential; output has not yet recovered the level of a year earlier.
Aguada de la Arena is not a historic gas asset. It is part of the package of four Unconventional Hydrocarbon Exploitation Concessions (CENCH) that Neuquén province granted YPF in March 2025 (together with La Angostura Sur I, La Angostura Sur II, and Narambuena) under an investment commitment of $12.9 billion and 700 horizontal wells.
Unlike its three sister areas, which target the oil window, it sits in wet gas, condensate, and dry gas, and that gas destination kept it out of the LLL Oil petroleum filing YPF submitted in May.
A Block Built for the Gas Window
The month's lead was reclaimed by Rincón del Mangrullo, which rose 32.22% to return to first place with 6.149 MMm³/d, 19.02% of all gas YPF operates.
That top spot rests on three delineation wells the block brought onstream near its southern boundary: RDM 553(h), the highest-yielding, joined by RDM 551(h) and RDM 552(h) at 845,000 and 647,000 m³/d. The sequence confirms as a development zone what a year earlier was still classed as delineation in the block's south.
Behind the podium came Loma La Lata–Sierra Barrosa (4.697 MMm³/d), Loma Campana (3.563) and Río Neuquén (3.418). The top ten blocks accounted for 90.72% of YPF's gas, all in the Neuquén Basin, in line with chairman and CEO Horacio Marín's decision to focus the company entirely on unconventional resources.
The monthly gain carries a seasonal qualifier. May opens the season of higher domestic demand, when southern-hemisphere winter consumption draws volume that sits idle in summer, and that seasonality explains part of the jump. The comparison that matters is the year-on-year one: against May 2025, YPF-operated output fell 4.08%.
Fresh Supply Is What the Export Project Needs
Aguada de la Arena's jump takes on another dimension against the company's export portfolio. In June, YPF, Italy's ENI, and XRG, the international investment arm of the United Arab Emirates' ADNOC, are filing Argentina LNG under Argentina's Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI), with an initial declared capacity of 12 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) across two floating LNG units (FLNG) of 6 MTPA each, $20 billion of infrastructure and $10 billion of drilling, a final investment decision (FID) targeted for the second half of the year, and project financing led by JP Morgan.
May's growth is new supply, the variable that determines whether the project closes. Argentina LNG needs to drill around 800 wells to reach peak output, a figure Marín has repeated in Houston.
YPF has already committed $525.39 million and 38 wells in the Hub Sur blocks reconverted to gas, and Wood Mackenzie has calculated that Vaca Muerta needs roughly $22 billion in additional investment and about 1,000 more wells to meet its export targets by the start of the next decade — a pace of around 140 wells a year above what has already been committed.