Bahia's role ahead of Vaca Muerta remains uncertain

Adrián Luciani / [email protected]

Although exchange rate instability and country risk make unloading investments almost impossible, Bahía Blanca 's role ahead of Vaca Muerta seems to be changing from one month to the next.

Clear doubts about the mission of Ingeniero White as a point of supply and export, there is still no certainty as to the true dimension that will allow the local docks to channel all these movements of equipment, goods and fluids.

This has a lot to do with the lack of definition prevailing around the Bahía Blanca-Vaca Muerta railway line, currently hard hit by the apparent lack of interest from the oil companies.

It is known that shipments of sand and equipment will continue from Bahia, but no one is encouraged to predict the maximum volume that will be reached.

The situation was revealed by the recurring postponements that the supply of the train cargo is registering, where, with the exception of the offer of the local port for 500,000 tons, there are no interested parties in sight.

Now, the deadline was set for Thursday, January 18, but few say that the big companies are directing all their weapons towards the construction of a new gas pipeline that crosses this area and then goes to San Nicolás.

Bahian's role on Neuquén's gas is not too clear, especially if it is an almost exclusive actor or another actor among others.

Doubts have begun to emerge in recent days as the intention of oil companies to begin studies to determine the feasibility or otherwise of building a land-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Chile was known.

Although the Government states that Vaca Muerta has enough gas to allow the construction of two such terminals in Chile and another in Bahia, for the moment only technical badessments are Obtaining Foreign Dollars Ceases to be a Chimera

YPF, Pan American Energy (PAE) and Pluspetrol are considering the possibility of exporting Vaca Muerta gas from ports in the Concepción region and Santiago de Chile.

This will require the construction of one or more liquefaction terminals on the other side of the Cordillera to carry about 20 million cubic meters of gas per day (million m3 / d) by the time mid-decade to come.

The big oil companies have even been internalized in the possibility of converting Chilean regasification terminals, for example the one at Quintero, near Santiago de Chile, to turn them into LNG production facilities.

It is obvious that the direct connection to the Pacific markets, mainly the Chinese markets, offers the advantage of replacing coal with gas.

Meanwhile, and in favor of Bahía Blanca, the installation of a floating barge liquefaction appears as the spearhead of a more ambitious program.
The idea of ​​YPF and TGS is to build a liquefaction plant in Galván in order to export it during the months of declining demand.
This, to the extent that another pipeline is built, would achieve the dual objective of ensuring energy supply and promoting exports.
In the meantime, even if tickets still do not appear, millions and millions of dollars are needed for many words to come true.