(WO) – Laredo Oil executives met Santa Cruz Gov. Claudio Vidal and the province’s minister of energy and mining, Jaime Álvarez, earlier this month. They presented the company’s Underground Gravity Drainage (UGD) technology for recovering oil from the province’s mature fields. The meeting, held at Casa de Santa Cruz in Buenos Aires, was Laredo’s second with Vidal after a first meeting in August. No agreement was reached, and the meeting doesn’t commit either side.
Santa Cruz is one of Argentina’s main conventional oil-producing provinces and lies in the Golfo San Jorge basin, where many fields are mature and declining. Laredo’s most recent letter of intent, which is non-binding, targets a development area in the province. Any final UGD agreements there may need provincial approval. According to the province, the two sides discussed investment and new recovery technologies and agreed to keep talking. Álvarez said the province is “recovering oil activity.”
“Santa Cruz has exactly the reservoirs UGD was designed to address. The engineering and evaluation work ahead will determine what can be done and on what timeline, and we will keep the provincial authorities closely informed as it advances,” said Laredo CEO Mark See.
Citing Ministry of Economy data, Laredo said Argentina’s crude production hit a record 887,227 bpd in May, about 19% higher than a year earlier, led by unconventional output in Neuquén. Conventional basins, including Golfo San Jorge, supply about 30% of national output, according to the company. Laredo also said it plans to look at U.S. government-backed financing alongside private capital, under the U.S.–Argentina trade and investment agreement signed in February.
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