Oil-drilling activity in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale patch is set to weaken in the near term as companies restrain spending, said the chief executive officer of the region’s biggest crude producer YPF SA. Marin cited flagging oil prices and acquisitions by rivals that have consumed capital for the slowdown, and said the active drilling fleet in the Vaca Muerta could shrink by five or six rigs. Marin’s remarks come as growth in the U.S. shale industry — whose 2010s-era boom Argentina seeks to mimic — slows amid swelling OPEC+ output and a cloudy demand outlook that’s pressuring crude prices. Still, Marin said that in the long term the Vaca Muerta, where drillers are trying to more than double daily crude production within a few years to 1 million barrels, would prove a success.
SOURCE: WORLD OIL
https://worldoil.com/news/2025/8/5/drilling-to-slow-in-argentina-s-vaca-muerta-shale-ypf-ceo-says