Malaysia’s energy giant Petronas and Argentina’s state-owned oil and gas company YPF are moving forward with their plans to develop a large LNG export project in Argentina, and they have signed an initial land lease deal with the port of Bahia Blanca in Buenos Aires.
According to a statement by the port of Bahia Blanca, its president Federico Susbielles held a meeting with Adnan Zainal Abidin, COO and EVP of Petronas, YPF chairman and president, Pablo Gonzalez, and YPF CEO Pablo Luliano.
The reservation deal includes an initial period of six months, during which YPF and Petronas will carry out technical, economic, maritime, soil, and environmental studies to determine how to make the project viable and internationally competitive, according to the statement.
At the end of this period, the firms plan to submit a private initiative application to secure a long-term concession, it said.
YPF and a Petronas’ unit in Argentina signed a joint study and development agreement on September 1, 2022 to work on the potential development of the Argentina integrated LNG project, Argentina GNL, to liquefy natural gas from Vaca Muerta’s vast shale gas resources.
The project will include upstream gas production, dedicated pipeline and infrastructure development, LNG production, as well as marketing and shipping.
YPF previously said the first phase of the project includes a production of 5 million tonnes of LNG per year and the investment is worth about $10 billion.
In the future, the capacity could rise to 25 million tonnes of LNG per year.
The port of Bahia Blanca said in the statement that the total project investment could reach $50 billion.