Pluspetrol - Bajo del Choique / La Invernada

The state company Gas y Petróleo del Neuquén comes in as a minority partner without an equivalent operating outlay, which means its result depends entirely on the costs the operator declares. A carried partner that does not audit signs whatever it is handed. With GyP holding stakes in fourteen unconventional concessions, technical audit of costs, cost recovery and investment programmes on behalf of the minority partner is a recurring service with a built-in conflict of interest: it cannot be provided by whoever already works for the operator. No niche on the map covers it.

The project declares a peak of 100,000 barrels per day but also of 12 million cubic metres per day of gas, and that associated gas is not a by-product that can be deferred: if there is nowhere to separate and condition it, the constraint ends up falling on the oil, which is what pays. The province already has the gas treatment and compression niche measured, but this project does not yet appear among those feeding it, and the committed volume is among the largest in the portfolio. The window is construction, not operation.