YPF: Picks Up Partners For Offshore Bidding
Argentina’s YPF is forming partnerships to participate in offshore bid rounds, as it looks to ramp up exploration work with a view to laying the groundwork for long-term production growth.
The state-run company’s chairman, Miguel Gutierrez, said last week that the company had sought partners to bid in the first tender for offshore blocks that is scheduled for December. It is Argentina’s first tender for offshore acreage since the 1990s. “We have agreements with partners to participate,” he said at an energy seminar in Buenos Aires.
In its 2018-22 investment plan that was announced on October 30, YPF said it wanted to build up reserves by 50% by widening exploration, including in offshore areas. The programme calls for the company to invest US$21.5 billion out of its own pocket and another US$8 billion or so from partners.
The government has said the first tender will be for blocks in the shallower waters of the continental shelf of the Austral Marina and Malvinas Marina. Earlier this year the government awarded permits to Australia’s Searcher and Norway’s Spectrum to carry out seismic and other studies to establish a better idea of the area’s potential.
Though YPF’s Gutierrez did not name any of the potential partners for the offshore tenders, in late 2016 the company teamed up with Norway’s Statoil for a prospecting programme in an area covering 360,000 square km that lies just north of Tierra del Fuego close to the maritime border with Uruguay.
YPF has also said there is potential off the coast of Buenos Aires Province, where it could drill a wildcat well as soon as 2021.
In the short and medium terms, YPF aims to build production by using enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques to wring more out of maturing conventional reserves while growing production through the development of unconventional resources. YPF is the biggest player in the Vaca Muerta, one of the world’s largest shale plays.
YPF has said wants to expand hydrocarbon output by 25% to 700,000 boepd in 2022 from an average of 558,800 boepd in the first nine months of 2017.