Vaca Muerta shale

For the next several years, supplies of crude will depend on several macro factors. Some are easier to forecast than others.

Wells are starting to come on stronger than expected, which is putting a new emphasis on orginizing all the other ingredients needed for shale production: more rigs, roads, pipelines, water, and sand.

YPF has followed an unconventional path up the learning curve to develop the Vaca Muerta, which could be the first big ultratight play developed outside North America.

Añelo is a small town in an arid, sparsely populated area with a new supermarket, police station, bank, skate park, hotel, and hospital. In the past decade the population has roughly tripled to 7,000, and in 5 years, it is expected to nearly triple again to 20,000.

After Gustavo Astie, executive manager for ­unconventionals at YPF, presented what he thought was an aggressive growth plan for the coming year to YPF management, he was asked: Would it be possible to go faster?

A drive down a gravel road in the Loma Campana follows the steep early learning curve in the Vaca Muerta.

It is easy to fixate on what it will take to extract huge volumes of oil and gas from the nearly impermeable rock within the Vaca Muerta.

The boom in organic shale plays has revealed the critical need to size hydraulic-facture treatments correctly to achieve commercial success.

Advanced horizontal drilling, multistage hydraulic fracturing, and other technologies have helped make the Vaca Muerta shale oil and gas resource economically viable.

Shale explorers in Argentina are reporting that improving performance and activity is set to rise this year to boost the country’s gas production.