00:00Joining us now is Miguel Galluccio CEO of Vista Energy and a veteran of Argentina's shale industry. He founded Vista
00:07in 2017 after
00:08leading the country's first major shale push as CEO of YPF. And he serves on the board of Schlumberger as
00:15well. And he's in New York
00:16here for Argentina week to promote investment opportunities with the U.S. And it's a great time for us to
00:21get you on the program. Thanks so much
00:22for coming in to Bloomberg. Miguel let me first ask you about your take on pricing because we've started to
00:31see Iran target more
00:32tankers. We've started to see more refineries shut down more ports empty. Like it's going to take a longer time
00:39to restart this now than it would have
00:41last week. Oh definitely. I mean what you've seen is what we're going to have for a little while. The
00:47question is how long it's going to
00:49take and how we're going to end up. Okay. As he just mentioned, any attack create tension geopolitically and the
01:00oil price
01:01react. I think the most important thing is how we recover energy security. So where the rest of the oil
01:09is going to come
01:09from. And I think on that topic, Argentina have a role to play. So how does this change the work
01:15that you're doing in La Vaca
01:16Muerta? How does it change when you see the price of oil move closer to $100 a barrel? Oh definitely.
01:22First of all, just to put in
01:23context, Baca Muerta was discovered on 12, 13 years ago. Since then, Argentina have moved his energy train balance from
01:34minus $7 billion to mass to plus $7 billion last year. So a swing of $14 billion for the balance
01:42sheet of the country.
01:43Last year, we did record of production. And this year, we will finish probably with a million barrels,
01:49what convert Argentina in a structural net exporter. With that, Argentina will be placed between the 20 countries
01:57that produce more oil worldwide. That make Argentina a new player at the global scale as an energy provider.
02:08So how much can you get out at the end of the day? And what is your cost to bring
02:13it up compared to
02:13what we're looking at now?
02:14Well, Baca Muerta is a very low cost. It's a shell play. It's very close to what we have in
02:20Permian.
02:20And not only is it low cost to produce, I think probably the more important part, and take it
02:27in the actual context, is that we have a lot of elasticity. We drill a pad of four wells in
02:34four
02:35months. So if we push a button today, because we have more capex, because the oil price is higher,
02:40in four months, we will be delivering more oil to the world.
02:44So what does it take then, in this moment, where the world is looking for maybe non-OPEC energy
02:49suppliers, for Argentina to really step into the fold? What needs to go right to fill that gap?
02:55Well, it's going right. I think we need to keep doing what we're doing. And to accelerate,
03:01we need more investment. And Baca Muerta today is have a rock that probably is the best composite of
03:08all the bases of U.S. So we've been blessed by the rock. What we need is more capital. And
03:16also,
03:16we need more oil service provider. We need more product provider, more competition. Productivity of
03:23Baca Muerta today is like it was Permian 15 years ago. So it represents a clear opportunity for oil
03:30independence. And this essentially, I mean, how long is your window now to position yourself as a viable
03:40non-OPEC alternative, especially as we see not just problems in Iran, but obviously in Venezuela
03:47as well. It doesn't look like that's going to get started up anytime soon either. Well, we are in the
03:51game.
03:51Okay, we are growing. Today, when you compare the U.S. with Argentina, the U.S. have around 500 rigs.
03:59We have just 40. And we are basically growing two digits every year. An example of that probably is Vista,
04:08the company I'm running. Vista, six years ago, was producing 20,000 barrels per day. Today, producing 140,000
04:16barrels per day. And it's aiming to produce 200,000 barrels per day. I became the largest
04:21independent of Argentina. So within flow of more capital, definitely, we can play a very important
04:28role worldwide. How much more capital, Miguel? Because I think before the war, you were forecasting
04:32capex of like one and a half billion. Do you try and take advantage of this here in New York
04:36for
04:37Argentina week? Do you gather up more money and spend as much as you can? Oh, it's very recent. You
04:45said
04:45that we are going to review our capex allocation. But yes, okay, as I mentioned before,
04:52we deliver four wells in four months. So with additional capex that's coming for higher prices,
04:59we will have the ability to basically to inject more money into the drilling.
05:04The other side of the war, though, has been weakness around sentiment in EMs in general,
05:10Argentina being one of them. You've seen currencies start to weaken too. Does that
05:15affect your ability to bring an investment? I don't think it does. I mean, today,
05:20the government is taking the right step toward accelerating the development of Aca Muerta.
05:25They have managed, first of all, they remove every restriction for export. That has been extremely
05:33important. They have managed to ease capital controls. That was a barrier for investment in
05:41Argentina. And they just released a promotion for investment called RIGI that basically helped
05:48to investors from U.S. to come into the country.
05:51So,
Comments