Jack's South America
South America has been a special part of my life for four decades. I have lived many years in Brasil and Peru. I am married to an incredible lady from Argentina. I want to share South America with you.
Monday, January 12, 2026
Bolivia: Strikes Escalate After Government and Union Fair to reach Agreement
Strikes in Bolivia to Escalate after Government and Union Fail to Reach an Agreement
BOLIVIA
Bolivia
Negotiations between Bolivia’s government and organized labor collapsed over the weekend, intensifying a two-week standoff over fuel subsidy cuts as unions warned of a “national revolution,” MercoPress reported.
On Friday, talks between the administration of President Rodrigo Paz and the Bolivian Workers’ Union (COB) broke down after both sides accused each other of inflexibility over Supreme Decree 5503, which ended fuel subsidies and triggered major price hikes.
Union leaders abandoned calls for limited roadblocks and said the country faced escalating unrest, with more than 50 blockades reported nationwide.
COB Executive Secretary Mario Argollo said the government had refused to repeal what he called an unconstitutional decree that threatened workers’ rights. He accused the administration of betraying rural and labor voters and likened the measure to Bolivia’s 1985 Supreme Decree 21060, which ushered in sweeping neoliberal reforms.
The government rejected that account, countering that COB made a U-turn on provisions previously agreed, including minimum wage increases and bonuses included in the decree.
Officials claimed union leaders returned to talks with an “unacceptable” ultimatum to completely repeal the decree. They have asked the COB to submit objections in writing to avoid further “misinterpretations.”
Paz and his officials have stressed that the subsidy cuts are necessary to restore public finances and correct fiscal distortions.
Deputy Minister of Autonomies Andrea Barrientos said the government plans to amend 35 articles of the decree to add procedural clarifications, including constitutional safeguards and social oversight, but without restoring subsidies.
The weekslong strikes have caused economic losses of up to $100 million a day, according to the government, citing disruptions to industry, commerce and transport.
Meanwhile, the decree has also escalated a political confrontation between Paz and Vice President Edmand Lara,
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Venezuela: The Leadership Changes but Nothing Else
In Venezuela, the Leadership Changes But Little Else Does
VENEZUELA
Venezuela
In the hours after the US removal of leader Nicolás Maduro, some Venezuelans allowed themselves to hope.
A few laughed and cheered. Others cried in relief. Some even popped the champagne they were saving for a very special occasion.
But a day later, that joy and relief were replaced by fear, dread and uncertainty as the country’s new leader escalated a crackdown on dissent.
“It feels like it did after the presidential elections in 2024,” María, 55, told the Washington Post, referring to the vote that Maduro allegedly stole from the opposition. “We won, but we also lost.”
On Jan. 3, the US attacked Venezuela and seized Maduro and his wife, transporting them to stand trial in the US for drug trafficking and other charges. Soon after, US President Donald Trump said Washington would “run” the country.
But on the ground in the days since, there is little evidence of that, say Venezuelans. Instead, all the players of the old Maduro regime are still running the country.
“There is no change at all,” Francys Machucas, a banking adviser in Caracas, told the Wall Street Journal. “We are going to remain in the same situation because it’s the same people.”
What did change after the Jan. 5 swearing in of Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as acting president was the intensity of a long-running crackdown on free expression and dissent.
Venezuelans say her administration has unleashed police and pro-government paramilitary units known as “colectivos” on the population. For the past week, these units have set up checkpoints and roamed the streets, looking for supporters of the US action and opponents of the regime.
They have been doing so under a new decree, imposed immediately after Maduro’s ouster, which ordered police to arrest anyone “involved in promoting or supporting the armed attack by the United States of America.” The decree suspended the right to protest and authorized broad restrictions on movement and assembly. The government also detained more than a dozen journalists last week.
Venezuelans say now, the atmosphere is tense and full of fear, with people afraid even to speak over the phone.
“We’re all tapped,” one Venezuelan resident told El País. “It’s very difficult. You say something and they arrest you.”
Venezuela is on pause now, said the Spanish newspaper. It described Venezuelans as “Afraid to go out into the street, to speak out, to run out of food, (to get) bombed again.”
Maduro supporters, meanwhile, are furious, taking to the streets daily to protest since the president’s ouster. Rosa Contreras, a 57-year-old, says she felt “humiliated” by the US action but was determined to show her support for the former leader by attending a rally calling for Maduro’s release, especially after she saw an image of him waving after arriving in the US. “He had an attitude that sent us a message: If I’m standing here, you have to stand here, stand tall and keep going,” she told the BBC.
Meanwhile, there has been no mention of elections by either Trump or the Venezuelan government, although the country’s constitution mandates that a vote must take place within 30 days of the presidency being permanently vacated, the Associated Press noted. Still, Rodríguez maintains that the rightful president of Venezuela is Maduro.
At the same time, there has been little mention of the opposition or its leader, Nobel Laureate María Corina Machado, taking over as the country’s president, with Trump insisting that she “doesn’t have the support” within Venezuela, the Hill noted. Machado is the country’s most popular politician.
In contrast, Machado praised the US action and told Fox News that “It’s a huge step toward a democratic transition.” The opposition leader, who was in hiding in Venezuela for nearly a year but escaped the country last month, is expected to meet with Trump next week after offering to “share” her Nobel Prize with him.
Phil Gunson of the International Crisis Group told NPR that the current government will fight to the death to prevent a democratic transition. “The biggest threat is an outbreak of democracy,” he said. “This is kryptonite for these people. Democracy will see them thrown out.”
Along with the political uncertainty, Venezuelans also wondered what would happen economically if the US took over the country’s oil production as Trump has promised to do.
For the past decade, Venezuelans have endured hyperinflation in the triple digits, shortages of food and medicine and the collapse of public services. About one-quarter of the population has fled the country. The economy has collapsed, say analysts, likening it to countries that have been through a war.
Alexandra Arismendi, who works in a mobile phone shop at the Sambil mall in one of Caracas’s busiest shopping districts, told Al Jazeera she was frustrated with the most recent spikes in the cost of daily essentials.
“Prices are high,” she said. “A carton of eggs is selling for $10, which is beyond normal.”
Still, some Venezuelans have hope that things will change after the fall of Maduro, and that they will be able to speak freely and choose their own leaders in free elections.
“I can’t deny that the future makes me anxious,” Daniel, a gardener who lives just outside of the capital, Caracas, told NBC News. “But I do trust that change can happen from now on.”
Monday, January 5, 2026
US Intervention In Venezuela Sparks Concern Among Allies And Rivals
US Intervention in Venezuela Sparks Alarm, Among Allies and Rivals
VENEZUELA
Venezuela
The United States’ move to remove Venezuela’s president and “run” the country until a “proper transition” takes place sparked mix reactions in Latin America over the weekend, with some celebrating the ouster and others fearing for the stability of the region, NPR reported.
Early Saturday, the US military carried out airstrikes in Caracas and captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The couple was taken aboard the USS Iwo Jima and later flown to New York, where they are expected to face federal charges, including drug trafficking, ties to narco-gangs designated as terrorist organizations, and weapons offenses, CBS News added.
Following the capture, US President Donald Trump said Washington would govern Venezuela for the foreseeable future, without providing details on how or for how long. He added that the US would take control of Venezuela’s oil industry and said American energy companies would move into the country. Trump also claimed Maduro’s removal would allow hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who fled to the US to return home.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in as interim leader shortly after Maduro’s removal. While the US has claimed the interim president will do “whatever the US asks,” Rodriguez has publicly condemned the military operation and said Maduro is the “only president.”
She rejected notions that Venezuela would become “a colony of an empire,” with officials describing the attack as an attempt to steal the country’s resources, according to the BBC.
But on Sunday, Rodriguez said she hopes to have a “balanced and respectful” relationship with the US “based on sovereign equality and non-interference,” CBS added.
At the same time, Trump dismissed placing opposition leader and Nobel Laureate María Corina Machado as the country’s next leader, insisting that she “doesn’t have the support” within Venezuela, the Hill noted.
Still, analysts said questions remain over US governance in the aftermath of the president’s removal, as Maduro’s allies retain significant influence.
Saturday’s operation marked the culmination of a long-running dispute between the Trump administration and Maduro’s regime, which has faced international criticism over human rights abuses, disputed elections, and economic mismanagement. Trump has accused Maduro’s administration of fueling migration to the US and facilitating drug trafficking, including fentanyl and cocaine – claims Caracas denies.
Those tensions prompted earlier US strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
Analysts said the operation represents Washington’s first openly acknowledged military strike against a South American government, reviving memories of US interventions in the region during the 20th century.
The move sparked concern across Latin America, particularly among leftist governments that have been critical of Washington, including Cuba and Colombia, who worry that they may be next, the Washington Post reported.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel described the strikes as “state terrorism,” while his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro called them an “assault on sovereignty.” Petro and Trump have also traded barbs in the past over the US operations in the Caribbean.
Brazilian and Mexican officials also criticized the US actions.
Meanwhile, Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei – an ally of Trump – hailed the operation, writing “freedom moves forward” and “long live freedom” on social media. Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa also welcomed Maduro’s arrest, as did Bolivia’s new leadership.
Venezuela’s allies, Russia, China, and Iran, condemned the action and called for Maduro’s release. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said he was deeply concerned that “the rules of international law have not been respected.”
European allies offered more cautious reactions. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said his government would “shed no tears” over Maduro’s arrest, while Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned that, despite Madrid’s refusal to recognize Maduro’s legitimacy, the US operation “violates international law and pushes the region toward uncertainty.”
Saturday, January 3, 2026
President Maduro and His Wife Were Arrested By US Authorities And Removed To Face US Justice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8QYuG8Qb44
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
Argentina's Shale Boom Propels It Past Colombia In Oil Output
Argentina’s Shale Boom Propels It Past Colombia in Oil Output
By Matthew Smith,
13 hours ago
Argentina, in a surprise development, overtook Colombia to become South America’s fourth-largest oil producer. The country is undergoing a once-in-a-generation unconventional hydrocarbon boom, which began with Buenos Aires nationalizing integrated energy major YPF in 2012. Since then, Argentina’s oil and natural gas output has kept soaring higher, regularly hitting new monthly highs as volumes of shale oil and gas production grow. It is Argentina’s national oil company, YPF, which is at the forefront of the boom with it responsible for this strong production growth.
For November 2025, Argentina’s crude oil production, despite falling from the October 2025 record of 849,646 barrels per day to 844,386 barrels per day, was still an impressive 12.5% higher than a year earlier. This was the first month out of the last six where output did not rise to a new record high. Rapidly growing shale oil production in the Vaca Muerta shale, Spanish for Dead Cow, is driving Argentina’s stunning production growth. For November 2025, shale oil output hit a new monthly record of 578,461 barrels per day, a 30.68% year over year increase, which saw it responsible for 68.51% Argentina’s total production.
Natural gas production, however, continues to decline. Output dropped 7% year over year to 4.2 billion cubic feet per day, the lowest level since December 2023. This represents a sharp drop from the record 5.7 billion cubic feet per day pumped for July 2025. It is rising shale gas output from the Vaca Muerta which is responsible for the solid growth of Argentina’s natural gas production over the last five years. For November 2025, shale gas production fell 1% year over year to 2.7 billion cubic feet daily, which despite being significantly less than the record 3.8 billion cubic feet per day reported for July 2025, still comprised 65% of Argentina’s total gas production.
Since July 2025, a combination of well maintenance, reduced drilling activity due to weaker spot prices, and a lack of infrastructure, notably storage and pipeline facilities, which is impacting takeaway capacity, are weighing on output. Indeed, the lack of pipeline and other transportation infrastructure has long been viewed as a key constraint with the potential to impact production in the Vaca Muerta. Although the increasingly prolific shale formation and Argentina’s national oil company YPF will be responsible for further production growth.
The 8.6-million-acre Vaca Muerta is a massive shale formation, roughly the size of Switzerland, located in the Neuquén Basin in northern Patagonia. It is among the world’s largest unconventional hydrocarbon resources and is frequently compared to the prolific Eagle Ford and Permian shales. The Vaca Muerta is estimated to contain 16 billion barrels of light tight oil and 308 trillion cubic feet of tight gas, making it the world’s fourth-largest unconventional oil and second-largest unconventional gas reserve. According to analysts, characteristics such as superior shale thickness, greater quantities of biological material, higher reservoir pressures, and increased well productivity make the Vaca Muerta superior to major U.S. shale plays.
After a decade of development, the Vaca Muerta is responsible for 69% of Argentina’s oil production and 65% of the country's natural gas output. With less than a tenth of the formation under development, there is tremendous production growth ahead. By the end of the decade, Argentina’s crude oil output is expected to hit at least 1 million barrels per day, with some analysts forecasting 1.5 million barrels per day by 2030. This is a massive increase over the 787,395 barrels per day lifted for the first 11 months of 2025. Natural gas output is expected to surpass 6 billion cubic feet per day by 2030, driven by the Vaca Muerta’s rising shale gas production.
It is national oil company YPF and its unconventional hydrocarbon acreage in the Vaca Muerta that will be responsible for most of the expansion of Argentina’s hydrocarbon output. The integrated energy major, which was nationalized by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in April 2012, holds the most acreage in the Vaca Muerta, controlling 2.9 million gross acres. YPF, after being the first energy company to start developing conventional energy assets in the Vaca Muerta, is the largest shale oil and gas producer in the formation. This first-mover status is delivering a tremendous windfall for the energy company.
During November 2025, YPF lifted 397,420 barrels of crude oil and 936 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. This amounts to 47% and 22% respectively of Argentina’s total oil and gas production respectively, making the national oil company the country’s largest hydrocarbon producer. For the same period, YPF lifted 315,937 barrels of shale oil and 725,716 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. This represents 79.5% and 77.5%, respectively, of the energy company’s oil and natural gas production for November 2025.
YPF is focused on developing the Vaca Muerta with plans to become a pure shale oil and gas producer. The company plans to achieve this by divesting higher-cost mature conventional oilfields while investing tremendous sums of capital to develop its Vaca Muerta acreage. Between 2025 and 2030, YPF plans to invest $36 billion with annual capital expenditure peaking at $6.8 billion during 2029. This will give YPF’s reserves and production a solid lift. By the end of 2024, the energy company held just over 1 billion barrels of proven reserves, of which 78% or 854 million barrels are unconventional oil located in the Vaca Muerta.
YPF’s shale acreage is proving to be particularly profitable. For the third quarter of 2025, Argentina’s national oil company reported low lifting costs averaging $8.80 per barrel, with the company only spending $4.60 per barrel to lift oil from its Vaca Muerta acreage. Those numbers underscore just how profitable YPF’s upstream shale oil operations are, even in the current difficult operating environment impacted by weaker oil prices. CEO Horacio Marín believes YPF can sustain profitable operations even if prices drop to $40 or $45 per barrel. In an interview with Infobae, he stated: “We made ourselves resilient at less than $40 a barrel, and at $45 we can develop all of Vaca Muerta.”
It will be YPF which will be responsible for Argentina’s unconventional oil and gas production soaring higher. Forecasts vary, but analysts believe the country will be lifting 1 million to 1.5 million barrels per day by 2030, while natural gas output is expected to exceed 6 billion cubic feet per day. This will deliver a generous economic windfall for Argentina with the country emerging as a net energy exporter during 2024, a year when the economically crisis-riven country reported its largest energy surplus in nearly two decades.
By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com
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12
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Bolivia: Fuel Subsidy Cuts Spark Protests In Bolivia
Fuel Subsidy Cuts Spark Protests in Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia saw nationwide protests this week as unions launched a general strike against President Rodrigo Paz’s decision to scrap long-standing fuel subsidies, a move the government claims is necessary to stabilize an economy facing severe dollar shortages and its worst crisis in four decades, MercoPress reported Tuesday.
On Monday, thousands of miners, coca growers, and labor activists took to the streets on the first day of the strike, with demonstrations and roadblocks disrupting activity in La Paz, El Alto, and other major cities.
Police sealed off access to central government buildings in La Paz, while highways were blocked in six of the country’s nine regions, according to Bolivia’s highway administration agency.
The protests, called by the Bolivian Workers’ Union (COB), focused on Decree 5503, issued last week by Paz, who took office in November.
The decree ended fuel subsidies that had been in place for more than 20 years under previous left-wing governments and had kept gasoline prices at about $0.53 per liter. Under the new rules, prices rose to around $1 per liter.
Paz defended his decision, saying Bolivia was spending about $10 million a day “on a subsidy that benefits smugglers,” who have been reselling fuel domestically and abroad.
The government has argued that fuel imports – which cost up to $3 billion a year – have drained foreign currency reserves and worsened economic turmoil after the decline of natural gas exports.
Officials noted that eliminating the subsidies will ease dollar shortages and help companies import goods and capital.
Business groups have backed the measures, while some trade unions have also accepted the changes.
Bus drivers stayed away from the strike after the government offered duty-free imports of auto parts, while Paz also mandated a 20 percent increase in the minimum wage, the Associated Press added.
Other unions – particularly those aligned with former leftist President Evo Morales – rejected the cuts and leaders accused the government of favoring business interests.
Analyst Carlos Cordero told AP that the strike aimed to “show its strength” ahead of next year’s municipal and regional elections. However, he noted that Monday’s turnout was low, suggesting that the union has been weakened and many sectors of the government believe the cuts were “necessary.”
Despite limited participation from some unions, COB leaders vowed to remain on the streets until the subsidy cuts are reversed.
Friday, December 19, 2025
Falklands Oil Megaproject Breaks Free After 15 Years
Falklands Oil Megaproject Breaks Free After 15 Years
By Natalia Katona,
1 days ago
After 15 years of delay, redesign, and skepticism, the Sea Lion oil project has finally crossed the line from ambition to execution. On December 10, partners Navitas Petroleum (Israel) and Rockhopper Exploration (UK) took a long-awaited final investment decision (FID) on what will become the largest deepwater oil development in the South Atlantic outside Brazil. Few projects of comparable scale have taken so long to move from discovery to sanction, and fewer still have done so under such persistent political, legal and financial headwinds. With FID now secured, Sea Lion formally enters the development phase, planned to last 35 years or longer, with first oil targeted for 2028.
Discovered in 2010 by Rockhopper Exploration, Sea Lion was the Falkland Islands’ first commercial oil find, but its remote location and legal difficulties made it vulnerable to shifts in capital investment. Premier Oil’s $1 billion entry in 2012 was meant to accelerate development, yet the post-2014 oil price slump and the retreat of listed companies from capital-intensive frontier projects left Sea Lion effectively frozen until the end of the decade. That changed with the arrival of Israel’s Navitas Petroleum in 2020. Initially a minority investor, Navitas became the project’s operator and majority owner in 2021 after Harbour Energy exited, restructuring both ownership and financing. The shift replaced public-market caution with private capital willing to absorb long-cycle risk — a change that ultimately unlocked the project and led to the FID.
Related: Top Exporters Boosted Natural Gas Supply in October
Sea Lion contains approximately 315 million barrels of recoverable crude oil, producing a sweet, low-sulphur grade with 28–29° degrees API and just 0.2% sulphur. Development has been designed in phases to manage capital intensity and reservoir performance. The sanctioned Phase 1 targets 170 million barrels of oil, with peak production of 50,000 b/d and 11 wells planned, while first oil is expected in 2028. Phase 2 is planned to recover a further 144 million barrels, with 12 additional wells to be drilled roughly three years after first oil to extend the production plateau. The entire field will be developed around a single redeployed Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel.
Navitas’ role has been central to unlocking the project. By the time it entered, the project had become too capital-intensive and politically exposed for publicly listed companies constrained by balance-sheet discipline and shareholder scrutiny. Navitas Petroleum, by contrast, has built its strategy around long-cycle offshore developments, particularly FPSO-based projects, where bespoke financing, patience and tolerance for high geopolitical risk are essential. That approach was proven in Israel’s Leviathan gas field, where Navitas held a 7.5% stake through construction, saw first gas in 2019, and exited in 2021 via a sale to Mubadala Petroleum once the project had been de-risked. A similar pattern played out at the Shenandoah deepwater project in the Gulf of Mexico. There, Navitas acquired 49% and operatorship of a stalled development, restructured legacy debt and helped secure a $1 billion financing package in 2021 backed by Israeli banks and institutional investors. Shenandoah came onstream in early 2025 and is now generating cash flow, reinforcing Navitas’ ability to revive projects others could not advance.
Sea Lion now follows Navitas’ established strategy. After the Israeli company joined the project, a funding agreement was put in place under which it covered 100% of Rockhopper’s project costs prior to sanction, effectively reviving an asset that had been financially frozen for years. Phase 1 is expected to cost around $1.8 billion to first oil and roughly $2.1 billion through completion once contingencies and financing costs are included. In contrast to Leviathan, however, Sea Lion represents a deeper commitment: with a 65% stake and operatorship, Navitas appears positioned not only to carry the project through de-risking, but to remain at the centre of the development well into its producing life.
The project has been facing a series of impediments, and only time will show if the owners will be able to navigate through them. Firstly, the legal framework underpinning Sea Lion project’s exploration and production is one of its most notable peculiarities. Following the UK’s de facto military victory in the 1982 Falklands War over Argentina as well as the 2013 referendum in which 99.8% of the Falkland Islands’ population voted to remain a British Overseas Territory, the islands are administered de facto and de jure under UK law, with sovereignty recognised in practice by most countries.
At the same time, the United Nations does not recognise sovereignty claims by either the UK or Argentina, lists the Falklands as a non-self-governing territory and continues to call on the two nations to negotiate. That unresolved status creates enduring political risk but has not prevented the Falkland Islands Government from issuing licences, regulating petroleum activity, and levying fiscal terms. Under the local framework, Sea Lion is subject to a royalty rate of 9% and corporate income tax of 26%, in line with the Falklands Islands Upstream Summary. Ironically, the UK is strangling its domestic oil and gas industry with a 78% profit tax rate, but entertains such a lenient tax regime in its overseas territories.
This way, politically, the project remains contentious. Buenos Aires has consistently opposed Sea Lion from the earliest exploration phase through to the FID announcement, describing the licences under which drilling and development are conducted as ‘unlawful’, branding the project ‘unilateral and illegitimate’, and citing the UN resolutions related to the sovereignty dispute. Argentina’s reaction to FID followed this well-established pattern. However, Buenos Aires has limited ability to intervene in the project from either a military or legal standpoint. Vessels en route to the Falklands do not need to pass through Argentine territorial waters, meaning Argentina's only recourse is to withhold logistical support, hoping that the difficulties of transporting necessary equipment and workforce from the UK to the Falklands via air or sea would make the project as financially unpleasant as it can be. The second major hurdle lay in a series of engineering and permitting bottlenecks that only began to clear this year. Located more than 220 kilometres offshore and entirely without supporting infrastructure, Sea Lion can only be developed via an FPSO – a solution that is both capital-intensive and constrained by limited vessel availability. However, early 2025 saw a long-anticipated breakthrough, when a front-end engineering design contract was awarded for a redeployed FPSO, marking a clear shift from conceptual work to execution planning. Environmental permitting, long a chronic obstacle, also moved forward. An Environmental Impact Assessment submitted in 2024 progressed through review, and in November 2025, the Falkland Islands’ Department of Mineral Resources concluded that the Environmental Impact Statement submitted by Navitas in July 2025 – the third version since the first proposal – satisfied local legislation and required only minor amendments. With engineering, permitting, and financing aligned, the case for an FID finally became robust.
With regulatory sanction secured and an FID in place, attention is already turning to what Sea Lion could unlock next. The most obvious candidate is the Darwin deepwater gas-condensate discovery offshore the Falkland Islands, drilled by Borders & Southern Petroleum in 2021 in around 2,000 metres of water and estimated to contain 460 million barrels of recoverable liquids. Darwin has so far remained stranded by depth, cost and lack of infrastructure, but Sea Lion’s success could alter the economics of further developments in the basin.
Argentina, meanwhile, has been testing its own offshore potential. Buenos Aires granted exploration permits to YPF, Equinor and TGS, and Equinor drilled the ultra-deepwater Argerich-1 pilot well, which was ultimately declared dry. For now, most upstream investment in Argentina continues to flow from the Vaca Muerta shale rather than frontier offshore plays.
Sea Lion does not resolve the sovereignty dispute over the Falkland Islands, nor does it eliminate political risk in the South Atlantic. What it does demonstrate is that with the right capital structure, operator profile and timing, even projects long dismissed as commercially unviable can be brought to sanction. If the development performs as planned, Sea Lion may not only anchor Falklands offshore production for decades but also reshape investor perceptions of one of the industry’s last major frontier basins.
By Natalia Katona for Oilprice.com
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