Tecpetrol, the Techint Group's exploration and production subsidiary, has set the ceiling of its local debt program at $3 billion — a figure calibrated to the financing trajectory the company itself has outlined: financial debt of approximately $3.0–3.1 billion by late 2027, required to fund its shale oil expansion in the Neuquén Basin, Argentina's main hydrocarbon-producing region.
The program caps the maximum amount of debt that may be outstanding at any one time, not the cumulative amount ever issued under it. A portion of the new $3 billion limit is already absorbed by existing instruments.
At the time of the most recent report by FIX SCR, the Argentine affiliate of Fitch Ratings, three series of local senior notes remained active: Series 8 ($67.4 million, maturing October 2027), Series 9 ($80.5 million, maturing October 2029), and Series 11 ($114.5 million, maturing October 2027), totaling approximately $262 million.
Series 7, a $120 million tranche, had already been called early in November 2025, freeing capacity under the program. The expanded ceiling provides headroom for further issuance as the investment plan advances and earlier maturities are retired or refinanced.
Fortín de Piedra Underpins the Credit Structure
The program rests on 2 pillars. The operating foundation is Fortín de Piedra, a shale gas block in the Neuquén Basin that accounts for 93% of Tecpetrol's gas production and 94% of its total reserves. With output averaging 137,800 boe/d in the first nine months of 2025, 85% of which was gas, Fortín de Piedra generates the cash flow that supports the company's leverage.
That gas revenue carries contractual backing: Plan Gas, Argentina's government gas supply program, covers 65–70% of the company's revenues through 2028.
The expiration of that framework is among the risks FIX SCR identifies for the post-2028 period, and the oil development at Los Toldos II Este is designed in part to offset it, diversifying Tecpetrol's revenue base away from regulated domestic gas toward export-priced crude.
To evacuate the crude the block will produce, Tecpetrol has secured approximately 40,000 bbl/d of firm capacity on the Vaca Muerta Oil Sur pipeline (VMOS), the trunk oil pipeline under construction to connect Vaca Muerta producers to Atlantic export terminals.
Los Toldos II Este: The Investment That Explains the Debt
The second pillar is Los Toldos II Este, the shale oil megaproject that Tecpetrol and Gas y Petróleo del Neuquén (GyP), Neuquén province's state oil and gas company, formally submitted to Argentina's Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI) 2 weeks ago, with an initial investment of $2.4 billion through 2028.
The RIGI grants large-scale projects fiscal stability and accelerated VAT recovery, a break from Argentina's historical pattern of frequent regulatory changes that repeatedly deterred long-term capital commitments.
Operated by Tecpetrol with a 90% working interest, the plan calls for drilling approximately 380 wells and constructing processing facilities, oil gathering lines, and gas pipelines in northern Vaca Muerta, 30 kilometers from Rincón de los Sauces, a town in northern Neuquén province that serves as the operational hub for the basin's oil-weighted blocks.
The timeline is specific: a first module of 35,000 bbl/d in March 2027, a second module doubling capacity by July. The target is 70,000 bbl/d, equivalent to roughly 8% of Argentina's current total oil production. To reach it, Tecpetrol will invest approximately $1.9 billion in 2026, of which roughly $1.5 billion will go toward the central processing facility, the surface infrastructure that separates, treats, and conditions crude and associated gas before transport.
Tecpetrol CEO Ricardo Markous described the RIGI as central to reducing project costs. The regime's main advantage at this stage is that it cuts financing requirements by allowing immediate VAT offsets, Markous said in December, quantifying that benefit at approximately a 20% reduction in total financing. The RIGI application remains pending before the national government.
This week, Techint Group CEO Paolo Rocca visited the project alongside Markous and the construction team, reaffirming the group's full commitment to energy development in Argentina. Markous struck the same note at CERAWeek, the annual global energy conference organized by S&P Global, in Houston weeks earlier: Argentina has an immense opportunity, and the Techint Group is seizing it with proprietary capital and market debt.
Three Financing Channels Running in Parallel
To sustain that level of investment, Tecpetrol has activated 3 financing channels simultaneously: issuance under the local bond program; 2 international senior notes, $400 million maturing in 2033 and $750 million maturing in 2030, both rated BB- with stable outlook by Fitch Ratings on the international scale; and a combined export prefinancing and syndicated loan facility of $750 million.
FIX SCR projects that net leverage will exceed 3.0x EBITDA in 2026, up from historically below 1.0x, before declining below 2.0x as production ramps, with projected EBITDA of $1.5–1.6 billion for 2027.
The leverage trajectory reflects a deliberate front-loading of capital expenditure ahead of production, a pattern familiar to investors in U.S. shale but unusual for Argentine E&P companies, which have historically operated with conservative balance sheets constrained by limited access to international capital markets.