JP Morgan and Santander will lead a fundraising operation for Argentina LNG, Bloomberg has reported, citing unnamed sources who said the total could reach $15 billion. One of these told the publication the companies involved in the project aimed to make a final investment decision by November.
The Argentina LNG project is a partnership between Italy’s Eni, Argentinian state energy major YPF, and Emirati XRG. The facility is to be built on Argentina’s Atlantic coast and have an annual production capacity of 12 million tons of liquefied gas, potentially ramping up to 18 million tons, according to the companies involved.
The project has a total price tag of $24 billion and will include, besides two floating liquefaction trains, two cross-country pipelines and a plant for the production of natural gas liquids, the Bloomberg report also said. The sum is higher than Argentina’s loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which stands at $20 billion. With LNG projects often exceeding their original budget, chances are the difference may end up even greater.
The Argentina LNG project will source its gas from the Vaca Muerta shale play, which has the world’s second-largest technically recoverable shale gas resources after the U.S. Marcellus. According to the partners in the project, Argentina as a whole has the potential to eventually produce 24 million tons of liquefied gas annually.
Vaca Muerta has already made Argentina the fourth-largest oil producer in Latin America—a position that may improve in the future as the government prioritizes the development of the local energy industry, encouraging infrastructure projects aiming to boost the offtake capacity of the Vaca Muerta. Natural gas output, per the latest data, stood at 5.5 billion cubic feet daily, near the all-time high of 5.7 billion cubic feet daily recorded for July 2025. Vaca Muerta’s natural gas resources are estimated at some 308 trillion cubic feet.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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