Argentina

Argentina at a glance

Argentina produced about 748,000 barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in 2025 and about 835,000 b/d on average from January to August 2026, according to the operator production filings published by the national Secretariat of Energy (Producción de petróleo y gas, SESCO Web tables, checked October 2026). In 2019 the same data show about 483,000 b/d. Almost all of the growth comes from one source: unconventional production in the Neuquina Basin, led by the Vaca Muerta formation. Unconventional oil was 20.5 percent of crude output in 2019 and 75.0 percent in January to August 2026. Over the same years conventional production fell by more than a third. This page works through those numbers by basin, province, company and concession, and explains what they can and cannot tell you.

How these numbers were built

The Secretariat of Energy publishes a pivot-table workbook of monthly production reported by each operator through its SESCO Web system, broken down by company, concession, field, basin, province, onshore or offshore location, and "concept". The oil concepts include primary, secondary and enhanced-recovery production in cubic metres, plus separate lines for condensate, stabilized gasoline and a line labelled "Producción No Convencional". The Secretariat notes that all production data since January 2009 were restated under a revised criterion, and that the primary production field excludes stabilized gasoline and condensate.

For this page, PetroEyes:

• defined crude output as primary plus secondary plus enhanced-recovery production, which excludes condensate and stabilized gasoline;
• treated the unconventional line as the unconventional portion of that crude output (nationally its share stays below 100 percent in every period, consistent with a subset, though see the company caveat below);
• converted cubic metres to barrels at 6.2898 barrels per cubic metre and divided by calendar days.

The workbook downloaded on October 22, 2026 runs from January 2019 to August 2026, with a partial September 2026 entry that is excluded here. Figures are operator declarations and can be revised. Our explainer on barrels, cubic metres and other oil units covers the conversion used.

Production by year: the crossover

Year	Crude output (b/d)	Unconventional (b/d)	Unconventional share	Conventional (b/d)
2019	482,596	99,118	20.5%	383,478
2020	455,202	120,247	26.4%	334,955
2021	485,852	168,663	34.7%	317,189
2022	556,347	249,019	44.8%	307,328
2023	611,191	310,836	50.9%	300,355
2024	665,167	395,167	59.4%	270,000
2025	748,174	505,711	67.6%	242,463
2026 (Jan to Aug)	834,731	625,641	75.0%	209,090

Source: PetroEyes aggregation of the Secretariat of Energy SESCO Web production workbook (data to August 2026), checked October 2026. Conventional is crude output minus the unconventional line.

2023 was the crossover year, when unconventional oil passed half of national crude for the first time in this series. The momentum is visible inside 2025 as well: national crude output was 702,052 b/d in January 2025 and 825,094 b/d in December 2025, a 17.5 percent rise within twelve months. August 2026, at 867,098 b/d, is the highest month in the workbook.

The monthly path since the start of 2025 shows the slope of the growth more clearly than annual averages:

Month	Crude output (b/d)	Unconventional (b/d)
January 2025	702,052	443,331
April 2025	698,006	445,597
July 2025	755,590	513,074
October 2025	804,283	571,554
December 2025	825,094	593,487
March 2026	818,699	600,575
June 2026	837,977	637,039
August 2026	867,098	675,380

Output was flat at about 700,000 b/d through the first five months of 2025, then rose by about 125,000 b/d between June and December. Growth in a shale play tends to arrive in steps like this, as batches of wells are completed and as pipeline or treatment capacity is added, rather than as a smooth monthly trend.

Argentina also produces liquids that are not counted above. Condensate and stabilized gasoline added about 62,000 b/d in 2025. Readers comparing these figures with international databases that report "total liquids" should expect those databases to show a higher number.

The conventional decline that shale has to outrun

The headline growth hides a second trend. Conventional crude fell from 383,478 b/d in 2019 to 242,463 b/d in 2025, a 36.8 percent decline, equivalent to about 7.4 percent a year compounded. Between 2019 and 2025, total crude output rose by about 265,600 b/d, but unconventional output rose by about 406,600 b/d. Roughly a third of the shale growth therefore went into replacing conventional barrels that disappeared.

Worked example: how much shale growth is needed just to stand still

Take conventional output at the 2025 level of 242,463 b/d and assume it keeps declining at the 2019 to 2025 average of 7.4 percent a year.

• Next year's conventional loss is 242,463 x 0.074 = about 17,900 b/d.
• To keep national output flat, unconventional production would need to grow by about 17,900 b/d, which is 3.5 percent of the 2025 unconventional average of 505,711 b/d.
• Every barrel of unconventional growth above that is net national growth.

The arithmetic shows that Argentina's net growth now depends almost entirely on shale, because conventional output is a shrinking base. A shale slowdown would show up in the national total quickly, with no conventional cushion to absorb it. The same logic applies to any mature producer with a young shale play, which is why the two series are tracked separately here.

What 2020 showed about the two kinds of supply

The pandemic year is a useful stress test because the two series behaved differently. National crude fell from 492,822 b/d in March 2020 to 424,533 b/d in May. Unconventional output dropped from 130,428 b/d to 99,133 b/d in April, a 24 percent fall in one month, but was back above 120,000 b/d by June as operators resumed completions. Conventional output fell less sharply, from 362,394 b/d in March to 322,566 b/d in June, and then never recovered: it was 326,551 b/d in December 2020 and has declined in every year since. Shale supply can be switched off and on quickly; conventional supply, once mature fields are shut in or starved of investment, tends to stay lower.

How the conventional barrels are produced: water, waterflood and EOR

The same workbook splits conventional crude by recovery method and reports water produced and injected, which gives a rare look at the cost side of mature fields.

Measure (national)	2019	2025
Primary production (b/d)	293,867	587,757
Secondary recovery, mainly waterflood (b/d)	186,084	143,009
Enhanced recovery (b/d)	2,645	17,408
Water produced per unit of crude (volume ratio)	12.9	7.6

Primary production doubled because shale wells produce on primary depletion. Secondary recovery, which is how old conventional fields are kept alive by injecting water to push oil toward producing wells, fell by about 23 percent. Enhanced recovery, which in Argentina's mature basins mostly means polymer and chemical floods, grew more than sixfold from a small base.

The water ratio explains why conventional barrels are expensive to keep. By basin, the 2025 filings show:

Basin	Water produced per unit of crude, 2025
Neuquina	2.8
Austral	11.6
Golfo San Jorge	19.4
Cuyana	35.0

Worked example: the water behind a Golfo San Jorge barrel

In 2025 the Golfo San Jorge Basin produced 182,845 b/d of crude at a water ratio of 19.4. That means operators lifted, separated, treated and in most cases reinjected roughly 182,845 x 19.4 = about 3.5 million barrels of water a day to get those barrels out. In the Neuquina Basin, at a ratio of 2.8, the same volume of oil would come with about 0.5 million barrels of water. Water handling is one of the largest operating costs in mature fields, so the ratio is a practical guide to why companies shift capital toward shale and why conventional decline tends to accelerate when prices fall.

Basins and provinces: the map has moved west

Basin	2019 (b/d)	2025 (b/d)	Share of national crude, 2025
Neuquina	209,647	543,650	72.7%
Golfo San Jorge	229,647	182,845	24.4%
Cuyana	23,362	14,523	1.9%
Austral	17,497	6,073	0.8%
Noroeste	2,443	942	0.1%

In 2019 the Golfo San Jorge Basin in Patagonia, a conventional basin with more than a century of production history, was still the country's largest producer. By 2025 the Neuquina Basin produced almost three times as much.

The province view tells the same story with political weight, because provinces are the counterparties for concessions and royalties.

Province	2019 (b/d)	2025 (b/d)	Change
Neuquén	122,244	473,906	+288%
Chubut	150,023	123,912	-17%
Santa Cruz	87,700	61,848	-29%
Mendoza	68,440	52,955	-23%
Río Negro	24,862	20,061	-19%
La Pampa	17,463	11,252	-36%
Tierra del Fuego	8,022	2,331	-71%

Neuquén's share of national crude rose from about 25 percent to about 63 percent in six years. Every other major producing province lost volume. Offshore production, reported separately, was a negligible 2,592 b/d in 2025, so Argentine oil is an onshore story.

Companies: concentration at the top

Operator	2019 (b/d)	2025 (b/d)
YPF	225,725	359,250
Pan American Energy	95,255	106,025
Vista Energy	9,344	68,860
Shell Argentina	not in 2019 top eight	28,760
Pluspetrol	25,322	19,893
CGC Energía	not in 2019 top eight	17,087
Chevron Argentina	not in 2019 top eight	14,862

Operated volumes under the company name used in the filings; group companies that report under separate names are listed separately in the source.

The mix inside each company's output changed even faster than the ranking. In the 2025 filings, the unconventional line equals about 76 percent of YPF's operated crude, against 31 percent in 2019. For Pan American Energy the figure rose from 6 percent to 29 percent, and Vista's output is essentially all unconventional. (For a few smaller operators the unconventional line slightly exceeds their crude total, which suggests the line can capture some liquids outside the crude definition used here; company shares should be read as approximate.)

YPF, the state-controlled national oil company, operated about 48 percent of national crude in 2025, slightly more than its 47 percent share in 2019. The fastest growth among large operators came from Vista Energy, a shale-focused producer whose operated volume rose more than sevenfold. Pan American Energy, the largest operator in the Golfo San Jorge Basin, raised its operated total by about 11 percent over the period despite the decline in that basin.

Concessions: where the growth actually sits

The workbook also reports production by concession area. The largest in 2025:

Concession area	2025 (b/d)
La Amarga Chica	72,123
Loma Campana (LLL)	66,831
Bandurria Sur	60,756
Bajada del Palo Oeste	48,636
Manantiales Behr	25,197
Loma Campana	21,016
La Angostura Sur I	19,895
Loma Colorada	16,627
Lindero Atravesado Occidental	14,440
Bajada del Palo Este	12,894

Nine of these ten areas are in the Neuquina Basin; Manantiales Behr is a conventional Golfo San Jorge field. The four largest areas together produced about 248,000 b/d, or roughly 33 percent of national crude, which is a level of concentration usually associated with a single giant field rather than a country. In 2019 the largest area, Loma Campana (LLL), produced 31,533 b/d. In 2025 four separate shale areas each produced more than 48,000 b/d. Loma Campana appears under two area names in the filings, a reminder to aggregate carefully before ranking fields.

Natural gas: the same shift, less dramatic

The companion gas workbook shows national gas production of about 141.4 million cubic metres per day in 2025 (roughly 5.0 billion cubic feet per day), compared with 135.2 million in 2019. The unconventional share of gas rose from 43.0 percent in 2019 to 63.7 percent in 2025. Gas growth has been smaller than oil growth because domestic demand and pipeline capacity cap output for much of the year, while oil can leave by tanker. Seasonality also matters more for gas: winter heating demand pulls production up, and summer surpluses have fewer outlets. For how gas storage and seasonal demand interact in the market Argentina's gas sector is most often compared with, see our guide to the EIA weekly natural gas storage report.

What the data imply for supply analysis

Three practical readings follow from the tables.

1. Argentina is a growth supplier outside OPEC+. Its crude output rose by about 83,000 b/d between 2024 and 2025 and by a further 87,000 b/d between the 2025 average and the January to August 2026 average. Global balance forecasts treat it as one of the non-OPEC sources that offset OPEC+ policy, a theme covered in our OPEC+ explainer.
2. Growth is concentrated. One basin, one province and a handful of concession areas carry the gains. That makes the national number sensitive to takeaway capacity, the pace of drilling and completion crews, and the economics of a few operators.
3. Decline is the hidden variable. The conventional series is falling about 7 percent a year. A year in which shale growth slows to the decline rate would show flat national output even with a busy shale program.

For a comparison with the U.S. shale basin Vaca Muerta is most often measured against, see our Permian Basin production outlook and the DUC wells explainer, which covers the drilled-but-uncompleted inventory that shapes how fast shale output can respond.

A note on reading Argentine production headlines

Monthly announcements of "record production" are common in Argentina, and the data above show why: in a series that rises most months, almost every new month sets a high. Three checks help separate signal from noise.

• Which liquid? A record for crude plus condensate is not the same as a record for crude alone. The difference was about 62,000 b/d in 2025.
• Which scope? A province, a basin or a company can set a record while the national total does not, or the reverse.
• Which base? Year-on-year growth rates look large when the base month was disrupted. Comparing against the prior twelve-month average is a steadier test.

Edge cases and limits

• Crude versus liquids. International comparisons often use crude plus condensate or total liquids. This page uses crude only, as defined above, so other sources will show higher totals.
• Unconventional classification. Whether a well is reported as unconventional depends on the operator's filing. The Secretariat's line is the official classification but is not a geological map of the formation.
• Revisions and late filings. Operator filings can be corrected after publication. The September 2026 entry in the downloaded file was clearly incomplete and was excluded.
• Area names. Some concessions appear under more than one name or are split by operator, so rankings by area can change depending on how names are grouped.
• Exports, prices and policy. This page does not cover export volumes, fiscal terms or recent investment-regime changes, because those figures could not be checked against a primary source in this update.

Frequently asked questions

How much oil does Argentina produce?

Secretariat of Energy operator data show about 748,000 b/d of crude in 2025 and about 835,000 b/d on average from January to August 2026, checked October 2026. Condensate and stabilized gasoline add roughly another 60,000 to 75,000 b/d.

What share of Argentine oil comes from Vaca Muerta and other shale?

The unconventional line in the national data reached 67.6 percent of crude output in 2025 and 75.0 percent in January to August 2026, up from 20.5 percent in 2019. Almost all unconventional output is in the Neuquina Basin.

Is Argentina's conventional oil production falling?

Yes. Conventional crude, calculated as total crude minus the unconventional line, fell from about 383,000 b/d in 2019 to about 242,000 b/d in 2025, a decline of roughly 7.4 percent a year.

Which company produces the most oil in Argentina?

YPF, which operated about 359,000 b/d, or 48 percent of national crude, in 2025. Pan American Energy and Vista Energy were next.

Is Argentina an OPEC member?

No. Argentina is not a member of OPEC or OPEC+, so its output is not subject to group production targets.

How does Argentina rank among world producers?

It is a mid-sized producer whose crude output is a fraction of the largest producers'. For the global ranking and how its output compares with consumption, see the world oil production map.

Sources

• Secretaría de Energía de la Nación, Producción de petróleo y gas, SESCO Web production workbook from 2019 ("TD_S_SescoWebUP_08_2026"), oil and gas pivot caches, downloaded and checked October 22, 2026. All annual, monthly, basin, province, company and area figures are PetroEyes aggregations of this file.

This page is educational market research, not investment advice.