Vaca Muerta

What this report is and is not. It is a map of the public knowledge about the basin: how it is organised, who sustains it, how it evolved, and where the data ends and judgement begins. It is a map of the knowledge about Vaca Muerta, not of Vaca Muerta. The contribution is the structural reading and the traceability of each assertion back to its source, not new information about the resource.

1The basin and the observed universe

Vaca Muerta is a geological formation from the Upper Jurassic (Tithonian) to the Lower Cretaceous (Berriasian–Valanginian), located in the Neuquén Basin, in northern Argentine Patagonia (Neuquén and parts of Mendoza, Río Negro and La Pampa). It is the most important hydrocarbon source rock of the Neuquén Basin and of Argentina. [Wikipedia; SciELO; IAPG]

Declared physical features

It covers an area of the order of 30,000 km² (the EIA uses ~8.6 million acres for its resource assessment). Its thickness ranges from 50 to 700 m. Lithologically it is predominantly marl —mature black shales, marls and calcareous mudstones—, with a total organic carbon (TOC) content of 1 to 5 %, reaching higher values in certain facies. It presents a thermal maturity gradient: a dry gas window to the west and a black oil window to the east. [Wikipedia; SciELO; EIA]

Declared scope — what this map can and cannot see

The map reflects the basin according to what is published and public. It does not see operators' proprietary data, unpublished information, or knowledge that is not in the cited sources. What is not in the public source is not in the map.

2Resources, scale and production

Technically recoverable resources (third-party estimate)

The EIA estimates for Vaca Muerta 308 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas and 16 billion barrels of oil and condensate as technically recoverable. On that ranking, the formation figures as the second shale gas and fourth shale oil reservoir in the world. These are resource estimates, not certified reserves nor a probability of profitability. [EIA]

Production (official data, 2025)

According to official figures from the Secretariat of Energy reported by the sector press, by the end of 2025 national oil production reached close to 868,700 barrels per day (a record since 1998), with Vaca Muerta contributing around 590,000 barrels per day of shale oil —close to 67 %–70 % of the country's total—. The formation accounts today for approximately 70 % of the oil and gas Argentina produces. In November 2025 there were 96 development wells being drilled, with a sharp year-on-year rise. [Río Negro; Infobae; Ámbito]

The scale of the jump is itself a structural fact: from some 45,000 barrels per day in 2014 to the current record, a growth of more than an order of magnitude in a decade. [EIA]

3Actors — who sustains the field

The most robust thing the map shows is not the concepts but the actors. They are cited as a structural fact of the field, not as an assessment of merit.

Operation

Development is led by YPF, with the participation of Pan American Energy (PAE), Vista Energy, Pluspetrol, Pampa Energía, Chevron, Shell, Tecpetrol, Total Austral and Phoenix Global Resources, among others. The evacuation infrastructure is organised around the Vaca Muerta Sur (VMOS) pipeline —up to 550,000 barrels per day, expandable to 700,000, scheduled for the second half of 2027—, with YPF as principal shareholder. [Infobae; EconoJournal]

Scientific and institutional knowledge

The public knowledge of the field is produced and sustained by agencies and centres: CONICET, universities (UBA, UNRN through the IIPG, UTN, UNLP) and the Argentine Institute of Oil and Gas (IAPG), which coordinated a multi-company regional integration with a dozen operators. [Río Negro Ciencia; IAPG]

Structural reading: that both the operation and the knowledge depend on a limited number of actors is concrete information about sustainability and concentration risk —a different plane from the geological resource, which the method does not confuse with it—.

4Evolution over time

The field has a dynamic that the map captures as lines that switch on and off:

• 1931 — the geologist Charles E. Weaver names the Vaca Muerta Formation while exploring the Neuquén Basin for Standard Oil.
• 1946 — Pablo Groeber confirms the importance of these Jurassic sediments; still without the technology to extract them.
• 2010 — YPF completes the first shale gas well: the founding milestone of unconventional exploitation.
• 2011 — YPF announces a "world-class find"; the first horizontal well is drilled.
• 2013 — YPF–Chevron agreement; the EIA publishes resource estimates that reorder the scale of the play.
• 2014 onwards — expansion phase: more technology, more investment, new companies.
• 2024–2025 — successive production records; the evacuation infrastructure (VMOS) advances.

Structural reading: the geological line (naming and characterising the rock) is persistent from 1931; the exploitation line only switches on in 2010 with the technique; the infrastructure line is the most recent and today the most active. Distinguishing a persistent core from a recent phase is part of what the reading contributes. [Río Negro; vacamuerta.ar]

5Where the data ends and judgement begins

The map asserts what is published and traceable: geology, third-party resource estimates, official production, actors and chronology. The map does not assert how much resource is ultimately recoverable in economic terms, which asset is preferable, nor any judgement of value or profitability. [REQUIRES TECHNICAL VALIDATION]

And there is a plane this curation does not compute: the network structural gaps —where the topology of the knowledge would expect a connection that is not there— require running the SPES engine over a documentary corpus (technical literature and records), as in the reference case on rare diseases. This map is the layer of real data on which that engine would operate; it does not replace it.

This observation does not close the network nor predict outcomes. It indicates the current state of the public knowledge about the basin and where the measurable ends. Every survey —including the one that refutes— reduces the uncertainty a little. The network is never exhausted.

6Sources

Public data as at 2025–2026. Figures may be updated; every strong assertion refers back to its source.

• U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) — technically recoverable resources and production context: eia.gov · production near record
• Wikipedia — Vaca Muerta oil field (geology, area, thickness, TOC, history): es.wikipedia.org
• SciELO — Sedimentology and stratigraphy of the Vaca Muerta Formation (Tithonian–Berriasian): scielo.cl
• Diario Río Negro — record 2025 production and Vaca Muerta's share (Secretariat of Energy data): rionegro.com.ar
• Infobae — Vaca Muerta's share of national production and concessions: infobae.com
• Ámbito — Vaca Muerta already contributes ~70 % of the country's oil and gas: ambito.com
• EconoJournal — Vaca Muerta Sur pipeline (VMOS): econojournal.com.ar
• Diario Río Negro (Science) — CONICET/UNRN research in Vaca Muerta: rionegro.com.ar
• vacamuerta.ar — history and the 1931 find: vacamuerta.ar