Jul 30, 2026 · 31 min · 11 segments
Andy McConn recaps his roadshow through Buenos Aires and London, from Vaca Muerta economics to the lull in international upstream M&A and where he sees green shoots in global exploration. Plus a…
Andy McConnGuest
Dane GregorisHost
What was the any sort of differences or similarities to interacting with the North American business that we know real well?
I mean, it's a shale resource, and so a lot of the topics are very similar to what we're used to in North America, but it's a different side of the equator and a different culture.
But really, I'd say the main difference relates more to the investment phase of the life cycle.
And so because it's so... it's so growthy still in the Vaca Muerta and less mature.
And of course there's, you know, we are less, Inveris is less ubiquitous in South America as we are in North America.
But you know, Not to put it like people say Shale 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 gets kind of arbitrary at a certain point, but there is like a Shale 1.0 feel.
There's so much emphasis on... there's so much positivity and rightly so, it's such a prolific and attractive play just on the geology and the fundamentals that raising capital and removing regulatory barriers seems to be, you know, takes most of the oxygen.
Whereas in North America, as you know, we spend so much time getting very technical and we scrutinize so many of the operational details and everyone's very dialed in.
And so even a topic like productivity degradation, you know, even though the productivity is extremely good and outperforms every base in North America, we've noticed kind of a negative trend.
And, you know, when we point out little differences in those sorts of trends in North America, it gets lots of attention.
In Argentina, you know, operators almost oblivious to the fact that, you know, productivity is what, or at least was trending in that direction before recently stabilizing.
So that's kind of striking when we have so much emphasis on those sorts of details in North America, whereas, and there's good reason for it.
There's so much profits to be had that, um, you know, attracting capital is still important and it's, uh, you're still generating strong returns.
So productivity degradation doesn't mean you should stop the growth by any means.
But it is just striking to see that kind of difference in the level of scrutiny.
And how, is it a function of different like metrics that folks are kind of narrowed in on, on the operation side down in Argentina versus North America, do you think?
What was the any sort of differences or similarities to interacting with the North American business that we know real well?
I mean, it's a shale resource, and so a lot of the topics are very similar to what we're used to in North America, but it's a different side of the equator and a different culture.
But really, I'd say the main difference relates more to the investment phase of the life cycle.
And so because it's so... it's so growthy still in the Vaca Muerta and less mature.
And of course there's, you know, we are less, Inveris is less ubiquitous in South America as we are in North America.
But you know, Not to put it like people say Shale 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 gets kind of arbitrary at a certain point, but there is like a Shale 1.0 feel.
There's so much emphasis on... there's so much positivity and rightly so, it's such a prolific and attractive play just on the geology and the fundamentals that raising capital and removing regulatory barriers seems to be, you know, takes most of the oxygen.
Whereas in North America, as you know, we spend so much time getting very technical and we scrutinize so many of the operational details and everyone's very dialed in.
And so even a topic like productivity degradation, you know, even though the productivity is extremely good and outperforms every base in North America, we've noticed kind of a negative trend.
And, you know, when we point out little differences in those sorts of trends in North America, it gets lots of attention.
In Argentina, you know, operators almost oblivious to the fact that, you know, productivity is what, or at least was trending in that direction before recently stabilizing.
So that's kind of striking when we have so much emphasis on those sorts of details in North America, whereas, and there's good reason for it.
There's so much profits to be had that, um, you know, attracting capital is still important and it's, uh, you're still generating strong returns.
So productivity degradation doesn't mean you should stop the growth by any means.
But it is just striking to see that kind of difference in the level of scrutiny.
And how, is it a function of different like metrics that folks are kind of narrowed in on, on the operation side down in Argentina versus North America, do you think?
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