Oil & Gas
Pluspetrol has won RIGI approval for a $12.4 billion plan at Bajo del Choique-La Invernada, a block already producing 93% of its first-phase oil target.
The project was approved on Friday under Argentina's Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI). Pluspetrol, an Argentine independent oil and gas producer, operates the block in the northern part of the Vaca Muerta formation, one of the world's largest shale plays, located in Argentina's Neuquen Basin, with a 90% stake. Gas y Petróleo del Neuquén (GyP), Neuquen province's state oil and gas company, holds the remaining 10%.
The plan commits $12.4 billion over 25 years. It was announced at the Argentine Embassy in Paris at the close of Argentina Week, a three-day government-led investor forum, with Pluspetrol country manager Julián Escuder in attendance. The August production is already on the books; the targets that follow are company projections.
The block arrives with a figure that changes how the plan should be read: it produced 46,594 barrels per day (bbl/d) of oil in August, against 13,047 bbl/d a year earlier. Output multiplied 3.6 times, and Bajo del Choique was, along with La Angostura Sur I, operated by YPF, Argentina's state-controlled oil and gas company, one of two blocks that account for four of every 10 barrels the formation added in 12 months.
That volume equals 93% of the first-phase target. According to the company, the initial phase is concentrated in the southern part of the block, with two processing plants, and targets 50,000 bbl/d of oil and 6 million cubic meters per day (MMm³/d) of gas. The gap is 3,406 bbl/d.
What Was Approved
The plan adds up to four processing plants, evacuation pipelines and more than 620 horizontal wells. The second phase covers the northern part of the block, with two further plants, and lifts peak output above 100,000 bbl/d of oil and 12 MMm³/d of gas. Measured against August production, the final target implies adding more than 53,000 bbl/d.
The company said it will run three dedicated drilling rigs and average 41 wells per year. At that pace, the 620 wells would be completed in about 15 years, within a 25-year investment horizon. Pluspetrol also estimated cumulative production of 794 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe), exports of $2.2 billion a year, and output 34% higher than it would obtain over the same period without the regime.
The approved project is slightly larger than the one filed in April: $400 million more in investment and 20 additional wells.
In early September, at the Shale in Argentina industry conference in Houston, Escuder said the company had replaced the concept of a single central plant with modules of about 25,000 bbl/d each, with the next one scheduled for April 2027, and placed Pluspetrol's 100,000 bbl/d target in Vaca Muerta in late 2028 or early 2029.
Costlier Per Well Than the Regime's Other Shale Oil Projects
Bajo del Choique is nearly double the size of Los Toldos II Este, the $6.4 billion project approved in August for Tecpetrol, the Techint Group's exploration and production subsidiary, and GyP. It is nearly three times the size of Rincon de Aranda, operated by Pampa Energía, a diversified Argentine energy company.
Rincon de Aranda entered the regime with $4.522 billion, 259 wells and maximum capacity of 44,000 bbl/d, according to the RIGI's official platform. By Shale24's calculation, that works out to about $17.5 million per well and $102,800 per daily barrel of capacity. Los Toldos II Este, with about 380 wells and a 70,000 bbl/d target, comes to $16.8 million per well and $91,400 per daily barrel.
The Pluspetrol-GyP project comes to $20 million per well and $124,000 per daily barrel, with a difference in scope: it includes treatment of 12 MMm³/d of gas and the evacuation infrastructure.
The week in Paris also brought a plan by TotalEnergies, the French energy major, to invest up to $10 billion, and a RIGI application by Pan American Energy (PAE), Argentina's largest private oil producer, for its Cerro Dragon field. Pluspetrol, which took over ExxonMobil's Argentine assets in December 2024, takes the largest of the three.