YPF S.A.

Chevron is planning to put, are you ready, $13.8 billion into that one oil field over the next decade.

Horatio Marin runs a company called YPF.

That's Argentina's state-controlled oil company.

Standing in front of an oil industry crowd in Nequen this fall, he told them the country was about to see a buildup of oil that it had never seen in 100 years.

Back home, the energy sector faced an unexpected leadership shakeup.

Daniel Gonzalez, the Secretary of Energy and former Chief Executive Officer of State Petroleum Company, YPF, resigned from his post.

Gonzalez had played a central role in cutting domestic energy subsidies and administering the large investment incentive regime known as RIGI.

The departure comes at a crucial moment for Vaca Muerta, the massive shale formation in Patagonia.

in kind of that core Vakamurda.

And when I say core, I mean the black oil, very concentrated positions from YPF and Vista, you know, the legacy development targeting what Danny called the La Cosina, the really deepest part of the formation.

So it's everyone's question is, well, you're seeing some of these operators pick up acreage or develop more moving outside of the core and in the north part of the play.

Is that really good? Are we seeing any impacts to productivity there? Is there really a problem outside of obviously developing infrastructure? And when we look at the data, some of those wells in the north, and to Danny's point as well, some of those depths in the north and west are the formation areas.

The size of the formation is a lot bigger in some parts of the north.

And so when you look at the productivity, it's really better, at least in recent, for 2025 wells, it is a lot better than what we're seeing from Vista and YPF in the core.

So some of the operators up there, Chevron, Cruise Patrol, they're just a lot better.

Is it thicker up there? Is that what you were talking about before, Danny? Yes.

Igual hay cosas que son ya, ya están ocurriendo.

Mega ya está aumentando la capacidad y el proyecto LNG, digamos, eh, de, de YPF y un consorcio, ya en, en principios del año próximo ya empieza a exportar LNG y va a haber líquidos también, así que vamos a verlo ya.

Ya lo estamos empezando a experimentar.

Bien.

Yeah, so who are those? Let me wait for you.

So who are those players who are already there? So first of all, by far, largest producer is YPF.

YPF is the state-owned company.

In Argentina, they call it EPF, EPF.

But yeah, we can call it YPF for now.

So for oil, cumulatively, it has produced over 50% of all of the oil from the Vaca Muerta formation.

It's crazy how they are dominant.

It is still the most dominant operator, but we start seeing other operators as well having a larger share on the gas production.

Es algo que hablará seguramente el canciller, pero está en análisis.

La justicia de Estados Unidos ratificó la liberación de Argentina en la causa YPF.

La jueza Loretta Preska dejó sin efecto la condena contra nuestro país por la expropiación de la petrolera.

Esto es luego de que la Cámara de Apelaciones de Nueva York revocara el fallo que establecía una indemnización de más de dieciséis mil millones de dólares.

The one that I would truly focus on that I saw as the most important sign of something really worth taking a look at was Total Energies, the French company.

Because last year, only last year, they sold part of their shale oil blocks in Vaca Muerta, in Noquen, to YPF.

Why? Because over the last 15 years, Argentina has had bans on dividend distribution.

It's had capital and currency controls.

Let's reduce our exposure to Argentina, right? We don't know what's coming down the line.

We've been struggling to have any sort of flexibility about what we want to do with our cash there.

So let's sell these blocks to YPF and just focus on gas.

And then in Paris, the global CEO, Patrick Puyenet, comes on the stage and he says, we're investing $10 billion in Argentina, and $5 billion of that is going to go to shale oil.

For the client, modular construction provides greater control over cost, schedule, and performance, and we're applying this same modular ex- expertise on another project in Argentina in September.

So YPF was selected, uh, has selected Axens for a major diesel production upgrade, and this is using a fast-track modular Prime-D solution.

And in addition to that, Lee, I'd just like to add a couple more that we're doing on the next generation of low-carbon fuels.

Mm-hmm.

No, es primera vez en Unity Expo.

Habíamos participado en Expo Postos y también en, en la Expo YPF.

Eh, la verdad que muy interesante.

Creo que, eh, hay bastante más variedad que en estas otras dos ferias y es una manera también de ver, eh, un pool de productos más completo en relación a lo que se muestra en fe-- en ferias en Sudamérica.

Suele pasar también que son marcas muy arraigadas en Latinoamérica.

Obviamente que hay jugadores internacionales como Shell, BP, TotalEnergies en algunos países.

En Argentina, YPF es como una empresa, eh, casi que provee todos los servicios de alguna manera.

Eh, y también incluye esa cosa del, del argentinismo, ¿no? De la identidad.

Several of the big LNG and shale projects that drove the last two years of spending are moving from construction into startup, which translates to lower CapEx.

However, new project sanctioning elsewhere, including a new multi-year plan from YPF and a fresh contract for Golar LNG, could partially offset the slowdown.

All told, the aggregate number could hold roughly steady in twenty twenty-six, while individual companies continue to swing well outside their guidance in both directions.

CapEx by segment.

Baker Hughes closed its acquisition of Chart Industries in July twenty twenty-six, a deal flagged as a CapEx driver in last year's report.

New Fortress Energy went through a major debt restructuring that cut its market value sharply.

Golar LNG signed a new floating LNG contract, reversing last year's expectation of a quieter year, and YPF announced a new fifteen-year Vaca Muerta development plan.

TotalEnergies cut its multi-year guidance well below what it signaled twelve months ago.