Oldelval, the Vaca Muerta crude oil pipeline operator, and Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS), Argentina's main southern gas pipeline operator, are executing a coordinated midstream expansion across three commodity streams — crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs) — backed by more than $4 billion in combined investment, designed to eliminate Vaca Muerta's evacuation bottleneck before 2027.
With Neuquén province's crude output surpassing 600,000 bbl/d and unconventional gas production accounting for more than half of Argentina's national total — according to Argentina's Secretariat of Energy data through year-end 2025 — the organizing question for investment decisions in the Neuquén Basin is no longer how much can be extracted, but how much can be moved.
Crude: Three Workstreams, One System
Oldelval operates the main crude transportation trunk system from the Neuquén Basin to the Atlantic coast. The completion of the Duplicar project in March 2025 brought that corridor's capacity to 530,000 bbl/d.
In December 2025, Ricardo Hösel, Oldelval's chief executive, warned that the Duplicar Plus system was running at 85% of capacity and would reach its ceiling between May and June of this year. To bridge the gap before the next major capacity addition comes online, Oldelval has already launched works that will add 200,000 bbl/d of incremental throughput before the system hits its limit.
"The idea is that, once the VMOS arrives, the basin's production doesn't find itself back in a bottleneck," Hösel said.
Duplicar Norte — a 209-kilometer, 24-inch-diameter pipeline — will connect the Auca Mahuida pumping station in northern Neuquén province, within the producing zone where several major operators have recently drilled some of the basin's highest-IP wells, with Allen, a pipeline hub in Río Negro province. Built under a ship-or-pay contract with Techint and backed by $400 million in investment, the pipeline is designed to capture throughput from the basin's northern hub — where Tecpetrol, the Techint Group's exploration and production subsidiary; Pluspetrol, an Argentine independent oil and gas producer; and Chevron, the U.S. energy major, are among the active operators — that currently has no direct outlet to the main trunk corridor. Initial capacity of 220,000 bbl/d is targeted for end-2026, scalable to 500,000 bbl/d by March 2027.
The third workstream belongs to the Vaca Muerta Oil Sur pipeline consortium (VMOS): a 437-kilometer pipeline connecting Allen with the Punta Colorada terminal in Río Negro province, where an export platform capable of loading very large crude carriers (VLCCs) is under construction. Backed by $3 billion in total investment — partially financed by a $2 billion syndicated loan from 14 international banks, including Citi, JPMorgan, and Deutsche Bank — the VMOS pipeline had reached 51% completion as of early 2026 and is scheduled to begin operations in December of that year at an initial capacity of 180,000 bbl/d, scaling to 390,000 bbl/d in the second half of 2027.
Managing the Saturation Window
The buildout schedule carries an internal tension the sector knows well. Between May — when Duplicar Plus reaches capacity — and December — when the VMOS comes online — the Neuquén Basin will pass through a period in which production growth could outpace available evacuation capacity.
Should output reach 770,000 bbl/d before the pipeline is operational, the system would again run into throughput constraints. Hösel said that if that scenario materialized, Oldelval would execute additional bridge works to sustain growth until the VMOS is fully operational.
December 2026 is the pivot point. Before that date, crude infrastructure operates at its limits and manages the transition. After it — with the VMOS operational and Duplicar Norte at full capacity — Vaca Muerta will have the network to support output well above one million barrels per day, with all crude reaching the Atlantic coast via routes that bypass strategic maritime chokepoints including the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal.
Gas: The Perito Moreno Expansion and the Winter 2027 Target
TGS is running a parallel expansion in the gas segment. The Perito Moreno pipeline — formerly known as the Néstor Kirchner pipeline — currently transports 21 MMm³/d across more than 570 kilometers. TGS plans to expand that capacity to 35 MMm³/d, backed by between $700 million and $800 million in investment.
Sardi has set a target of reaching winter 2027 — Argentina's peak gas demand season, running June through August — with additional volumes in place, generating an estimated $700 million in energy trade balance savings and $450 million in fiscal benefits. The savings figure reflects Argentina's historical dependence on imported LNG to cover the winter demand gap, a cost the country bore annually through most of the past decade. The project is structured under Argentina's Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI) and was awaiting approval from the regime's evaluating commission as of late 2025.
NGLs: TGS's Most Ambitious Workstream
The NGL project — TGS's most ambitious workstream and the most recently announced — completes the picture. On March 11, at Bank of America's Argentina Week, an annual investor forum focused on Argentina's energy and macroeconomic outlook, TGS unveiled what it describes as the largest NGL investment in Argentine history: a $3 billion integrated gas processing and export system, with a final investment decision (FID) targeted for April 2026.
The project spans the full value chain. At Tratayén, Neuquén province, TGS will expand its processing plant to a throughput capacity of 43 MMm³/d, separating liquids — propane, butane, and natural gasoline — from associated gas at an estimated output of 2.7 million tonnes per year. From there, a 573-kilometer, 20-inch products pipeline will transport the separated liquids to Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires province — Argentina's main industrial port and hub of its petrochemical and NGL export complex — where TGS will build a fractionation plant, storage facilities, and a marine export terminal.
All production is destined for export markets, with projected annual revenues of approximately $1.2 billion. From FID, the project is expected to take 45 months to complete, placing full system commissioning in 2029–2030.
Sardi put the project's commercial case in concrete terms. "This investment will generate $1.2 billion in annual exports, consolidating a genuine source of foreign currency," he said.
Marcelo Mindlin, chairman of Pampa Energía, a diversified Argentine energy company that co-controls TGS alongside the Sielecki family, framed the announcement in historical terms. "Argentina hasn't completed a liquids processing project in over 25 years, and this is the largest of its kind in history," Mindlin said. "It is a key investment to resolve one of the bottlenecks that could limit Vaca Muerta's development and consolidate the country's export leap."
The 2027 Buildout Timeline
Neuquén Basin midstream now has a concrete calendar for the next two years. Oldelval's bridge works come online before May. In December 2026, the VMOS starts at 180,000 bbl/d and Duplicar Norte adds a further 220,000 bbl/d. In the first quarter of 2027, Duplicar Norte reaches full capacity at 500,000 bbl/d while the VMOS scales to 390,000 bbl/d. In the winter of 2027, the expanded Perito Moreno pipeline contributes an additional 14 MMm³/d. The NGL project's liquids volumes arrive later — toward the end of the decade — but complete a midstream chain with no precedent in the formation's history.