Olavarría Wind Farm (P.E. Olavarría) — wind generation (GEAR I / PCR + ArcelorMittal Acindar)
A 180 MW wind farm near Olavarría (Buenos Aires), owned by GEAR I (PCR + ArcelorMittal Acindar). 30 latest-generation wind turbines (6 MW each); partial self-supply for Acindar's steel plants. It includes a new transformer station and ~25 km of 132 kV line. It is one of the few RIGI projects in Buenos Aires and a case of renewable energy tied to an industrial consumer (captive PPA). ⚠ The 'Res 137/2026' from the Energy Secretariat that circulated is NOT the RIGI admission.
The projectwhat it is, the route, the owners, the works and the contractors
Who owns it
GEAR I S.A. Dedicated Branch PEO (VPU, CUIT 30-71903605-4); parent Generación Eléctrica Argentina Renovable I S.A. (CUIT 30-71592816-3), owned by PCR (Petroquímica Comodoro Rivadavia) and ArcelorMittal Acindar verif Aug 27, 2025 ↗
The works, milestone by milestone
Components for 10 of the 29 turbines have reached the site. Three ships unloaded blades and parts at Bahía Blanca between May and July — the Star Dalmatia, the Star Nordkapp and the Star Louisiana — and the road operation runs to the end of the year.
Erection of the wind farm's first turbine begins, in the Pourtalé area. Component hauling from the port of Bahía Blanca had started the week before.
The province of Buenos Aires declares the «Olavarría Stage 1» wind farm environmentally fit, by Resolución 380/2026 of the Subsecretaría de Control y Fiscalización Ambiental. What it authorises is bigger than what is being built: 212.4 MW with 36 turbines, and a substation sized for 214 MW.
The USD 30 million loan from FMO, the Dutch development bank, becomes effective within the package led by the IFC. Its disclosure sheet classifies the project as environmental and social risk category A — the highest — and settles the shareholding: PCR 51% and Acindar 49%.
The IFC announces it is financing the wind farm and the transmission upgrade: it is lead arranger of a USD 110 million senior corporate loan, expandable to USD 140 million, guaranteed by PCR — USD 30 million from its own account and USD 80 million mobilised from other lenders. The same release settles the final machine (29 Vestas, 185.6 MW) and the scope: the 25 km line plus the Olavarría and Ezeiza capacitors.
Resolución 1254/2025 of the Ministerio de Economía is published in the Boletín Oficial, approving accession: total investment of USD 275,590,893.12, eligible assets of USD 255,112,058.12, a 180 MW wind farm with 30 turbines of 6 MW, and a minimum investment deadline of 30 November 2027. It is the seventh project approved under the regime.
The RIGI accession date set by Resolución 1254/2025: it is what starts the regime's two-year clock for this project.
Who already has a contract
Verbatim from the lead lender's release: «the installation of 29 wind turbines supplied by Vestas, with a total installed capacity of 185.6 megawatts». ⭐ This is the row that orders everything else for a supplier: anyone wanting into erection, lifting or turbine maintenance negotiates with Vestas, not with the wind farm's operator. ⛔ The contract price is not published, and there is no tender document or bidder ranking either: who lost is unknown.
The company said that «the transport of components for 10 of the 29 turbines has already been completed and that this work will finish by the end of the year». The nacelle trailer «has five axles, each with eight wheels, which lets it carry more weight, and a compensating dolly that helps spread it». In parallel the same firm is moving blades to the Vientos Bonaerenses wind farm, in Tornquist. ⛔ No contract value published.
Verbatim: «The blades for the Olavarría wind farm are hauled by another oversized-load company, Coamtra». The operation runs from mid-June to September 2026 and uses the same corridor as the rest of the components. ⛔ No contract value published.
How to supply itwhere to register, what they ask for and what they will buy
How to become a supplier
GEAR I S.A. Sucursal Dedicada PEO (CUIT 30-71903605-4), the dedicated branch that joined the RIGI. The parent is GEAR I S.A. (CUIT 30-71592816-3), 51% owned by PCR and 49% by ArcelorMittal Acindar; the provincial environmental permit is in the parent's name, not the branch's.
The operator is PCR, the majority partner, and buying is decided inside its structure, not in Olavarría. ⚠️ What most orders a supplier's search is knowing what is NOT decided there: the machines and their erection are supplied and installed by Vestas, so the turbine lifting and maintenance chain is negotiated with the manufacturer; and hauling the components from the port is already awarded to two oversized-load firms. What remains open, with no publicly named contractor, is the civil works, the substation, the 132 kV line and the on-site services. The operators stated that construction involves «more than 30 local supplier firms» and some 1,300 direct and indirect jobs.
The registration routes that exist today, with their status. The one that is up and running is not always the official one.
Registro de Desarrollo de Proveedores Bonaerenses
up and running todayA free online provincial register for SMEs with productive activity in the province. Its purpose is to give the large projects' procurement teams someone to call: the database «may be made available to companies applying for accession» to the provincial regime. Once registration is approved, the province assigns a number and issues a certificate.
Go to the single windowabrirSupplier portal of PCR, the operator and majority partner
PCR publishes a «Portal Proveedores» as its own link on its corporate site. ⛔ WE COULD NOT CONFIRM WHETHER IT WORKS FOR SIGNING UP: the server did not answer four connection attempts from here — two over HTTPS and two over HTTP, with a browser user agent and a referrer from the origin site — so we did not see the screen. That is why the channel is published without a status: it exists as a link from the operator itself, and whether it opens for a new supplier is what remains to be checked.
Go to the single windowabrirWhat they ask you for
The environmental permit's Environmental and Social Management Plan is binding on contractors and subcontractors, not only on the owner: anyone entering the site is covered, «regardless of rank and role». verif Jun 17, 2026 ↗Verbatim from Annex I of the environmental impact statement: the contingency and environmental management plans «shall be strictly known and mandatorily complied with by GEAR I S.A. employees, contractors, subcontractors and their operatives, regardless of rank and role… during the construction, operation, maintenance and abandonment stages of the project». Coordination sits with an environmental protection unit inside the owner, staffed by professionals «duly registered and licensed in the RUPAYAR», the provincial register of environmental professionals.
Three concrete requirements checked at the site gate: a valid vehicle technical inspection on EVERY vehicle, fill material sourced only from a licensed quarry, and special waste hauled and disposed of only by licensed firms. verif Jun 17, 2026 ↗Verbatim from Annex I of the environmental impact statement: «All vehicles must hold a valid Vehicle Technical Inspection (VTV)»; fill material «must be extracted from a licensed quarry, as established in decreto 968/97 under Ley 24.585»; and special waste is managed «in accordance with the legislation in force (Ley Nº 11.720, Decreto Nº 806/97)», with «transport, treatment and final disposal by firms licensed for the type of waste concerned». On top of that, no equipment may contain oils with polychlorinated biphenyls.
For lifting there is no published certification, but there is a scale figure that defines who can do it: erection uses a main hydraulic crane of 500 to 750 tonnes plus two support cranes of 100 to 200, and the load travels with a permit per leg, a pilot car, police escort and only in daylight. prob Aug 3, 2026 ↗The hauls «start around 8 in the morning, since vehicles with this kind of load cannot travel at night»; «each leg requires a permit»; Vialidad Nacional «requires them not to exceed the axle weight limits»; and each convoy travels «with Vialidad Provincial (route 51 is provincial), police and a pilot car from the company itself». Each blade weighs around 22,800 kilos.
The floor that can open the door: if the project joins the provincial strategic investment regime, the law requires at least 50% of what is spent on suppliers to go to firms based in Buenos Aires province. verif Nov 27, 2024 ↗Article 13 of Ley 15.510: beneficiaries with an investment above USD 50,000,000 «shall submit a supplier development programme providing that, on an incremental basis… at least fifty per cent (50%) of the total amount earmarked for supplier payments is directed to contracting and purchasing goods, services and/or works from firms based in the province of Buenos Aires». The implementing decree splits it into 30% within two years of the effective start of the investment and 20% within three years of the start of operations. ⛔ IT DOES NOT BIND THIS PROJECT TODAY: there is no act declaring it admitted into the provincial regime, and neither of the two separate searches we ran found one. It is published because the project's USD 275.6 M is far above the threshold and because the provincial register is already running: it is the lever that exists, not a done deal.
The order you get in by
Separate out who you are selling to. If it is lifting, erection or turbine maintenance, the buyer is Vestas. If it is civil works, roads, earthmoving, electrical works or on-site services, the buyer is the wind farm's operator and its works contractor, which today has no public name.
Get in shape before knocking: a valid vehicle technical inspection across the fleet, a fill supplier with a quarry licensed under decreto 968/97, and haulage and disposal of special waste by a firm licensed under Ley 11.720. Without that, the permit's environmental management plan shuts the contractor out.
If the company is an SME based in the province, register in the Registro de Desarrollo de Proveedores Bonaerenses: it is free, it is online and it is the database that procurement teams of provincial-regime projects consult. The province publishes no deadline; if paperwork is missing it notifies you by email and issues a token to fix it.
Try the supplier portal PCR publishes on its own site. ⚠️ We could not open it from here in four attempts, so it is worth having the fallback to hand: the operator's institutional contact form.
Look at the window that opens next. The environmental permit is granted for 212.4 MW and 36 machines, and the substation was sized for 214 MW: there is a Stage II already contemplated, with a second high-voltage line and an extra bay at the Olavarría substation. Whoever gets into the first stage now is positioned for that one.
What it will buy, and when
The resolution requires 40% in the first two years and sets a deadline of Nov 30, 2027: the purchase of the 30 wind turbines, the substation and the line is concentrated up front by the obligation to certify, not by the pace of construction.
The park is born tied to self-supply for Acindar's steel plants: it is a long supply contract with an industrial counterparty, and that —not the spot price of power— is what makes the investment financeable.
Thirty 6 MW turbines in operation leave scheduled maintenance, lifting, internal roads and electrical work across their whole useful life, with a different supplier profile from the assembly one: less mobilisation, more proximity and availability.
Each phase buys different things at different times.
Construction of the wind farm
under wayThe company declared USD 80,371,903 of investment in computable assets for the first year and USD 136,091,475 for the second, and filed its works schedule on Jan 30, 2025. ⚠️ The act publishes neither the construction start date nor the start-up date: the closing year is the deadline to certify the minimum investment.
What it will need and has no supplier for yet
Wind civil works and turbine assembly (foundations, cranes, lifting of 30 turbines of 6 MW)
highLifting large wind turbines and their foundations demands heavy cranes, civil works and specialized blade/nacelle logistics.
Evacuation electrical works (33/132 kV substation + 25 km transmission line) and farm O&M
mediumThe substation and the high-voltage line are dedicated electrical works; the farm then requires turbine O&M.
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Analyze my companyWhat it leaves in Buenos Airesjobs, works, taxes, promises and the outlook
The works that stay behind
The infrastructure that stays standing once the works end, with its size and its source.
High-voltage line between the wind farm's substation and the Olavarría substation
Poweren 132 kV
The national grid: the line reaches the 500/132 kV Olavarría substation, which belongs to TRANSBA, and comes in through Bay No. 04 that the carrier already had commissioned. The final connection is an underground cable buried inside TRANSBA's site.
The lead lender's release describes it as «the construction of a 25 km transmission line connecting the wind farm to the Olavarría substation». The environmental permit spells out the connection: «the connection to the 500/132 kV Olavarría substation (TRANSBA) using Bay No. 04, commissioned by TRANSBA, where the Stage 1 high-voltage line will arrive. The final connection to that substation will be made with an underground high-voltage cable, buried inside TRANSBA's site».
Querandíes substation
PowerThe wind farm and whatever comes next: the environmental permit itself says that infrastructure «will allow the connection of 214 MW of installed capacity», more than the first batch of machines will inject, and that Stage II adds a second line and an extra bay at the Olavarría substation.
Verbatim from the environmental permit: «The Querandíes Substation (ET QUR) will be built, at 132/33/13.2 kV, with double busbar, 2 transformer bays of 120 MVA, 1 line bay, 1 spare bay and 1 bus coupler bay. This infrastructure will allow the connection of 214 MW of installed capacity, corresponding to 36 turbines of the Olavarría Wind Farm – Stage I». It includes «complementary civil works (foundations, structures, earthing grid, lighting, access roads, perimeter fencing and a divider between the generator's and the carrier's areas)». The addendum in the file «reduces the capacity of each transformer by 16.67%».
Capacitor upgrade at the Olavarría and Ezeiza substations
PowerThe whole system, not the wind farm: these are works inside high-voltage transmission substations, on a corridor linking the country's best wind region with its largest consumption centre. Privately financed and operated by the system.
The lender's release says the project includes «the expansion and upgrading of capacitors at the Olavarría and Ezeiza substations», on the Bahía Blanca-Abasto high-voltage corridor, which «connects a region with best-in-class wind resources to the country's largest demand center». ⭐ And what makes it a precedent rather than one more piece of work: «The project is the country's first renewable energy generation initiative to incorporate privately financed transmission infrastructure integrated into the Argentine Interconnection System (SADI)». The Dutch development bank adds what it is for: those investments «are essential to maintaining 100% dispatch priority and enabling the integration of additional renewable capacity into Argentina's grid».
Access roads and upgrading of rural road Sec. 78-05
Roadsof 7 m wide roads and 4,870 m of 4 m wide roads — 16.2 ha in all — plus 13 ha of pre-existing rural roads upgraded
Farmland in the area: access is via a municipal rural road that has to be upgraded «to the specifications required for trucks, cranes and other vehicles», and that improvement stays once construction ends. The internal roads keep being used afterwards, for wind farm maintenance.
Verbatim from the environmental permit: «Access to the site will be via the rural road "Camino Sec. 78-05", which will be upgraded to the specifications required for the traffic of trucks, cranes and other vehicles used in erection and later in wind farm maintenance»; «20312 metres of 7-metre-wide roads and 4870 metres of 4-metre-wide roads will be worked on, for a total of 16.2 ha affected. In addition, 13 ha of pre-existing rural roads will be upgraded». Total civil works occupy 58.20 ha, 0.98% of a 5,941 ha site: the rest of the land keeps producing.
- What it already pays in taxes and royalties — We have not broken down this project’s local fiscal contribution: the primary source that sets each item still has to be opened, and an act of the State is not published on press backing.
- Who promised what — We have not surveyed the public promises about this project. A dated, verifiable commitment with its source closes them.
What could stall itrisks and how to track them
- What could stall it — We have not documented this project’s risks. An identifiable vector with its source closes them.
- How to tell whether it is advancing — We have not defined this project’s indicators: what observable fact marks its progress still has to be identified.
How we verified thisthe act, the gaps and the sources
The RIGI act, in detail
EX-2024-142734968- -APN-SCEYM#MEC verif Aug 27, 2025 ↗
Jul 25, 2025 verif Aug 27, 2025 ↗
The act’s articles, in detail
2 facts on the commitment
30 November 2027 to complete the minimum investment amount. 40% within the first 2 years. verif Nov 30, 2027 ↗
Generación Eléctrica Argentina Renovable I S.A. Sucursal Dedicada PEO (GEAR I SDE), tax ID 30-71903605-4. verif Aug 27, 2025 ↗
What we could not confirm
There are 5 in this project. Each says why it could not be confirmed and what it would take to close it.
H-01How many people the construction employs and how many stay working in operation+
No RIGI admission resolution publishes the figure: the seventeen that are published state that the company «provided the estimate of direct and indirect employment of the Project with local integration» and do not transcribe it. The official RIGI portal publishes a single figure that adds direct and indirect jobs together and does not separate the two stages, and mixing them is exactly the error the `empleo` field exists to prevent.
H-02Who does the civil works, the substation and the 132 kV line+
We searched twice, separately, and neither search found a named contractor for the foundations, the roads, the substation or the line. The environmental permit describes the trades — a main 500 to 750 tonne hydraulic crane, two support cranes, site camp, canteen, waste management — but names no companies, and the works are private, so there is no public tender to open. The only named work is the transport of the components.
H-03Who makes the steel towers in Florencio Varela+
Two separate press sources say the towers come out of a factory in Florencio Varela, and neither names the company. It is the highest local-content item in the wind farm — four kilometres of steel towers, according to the operators' own fact sheet — and the one a Buenos Aires metalworking supplier would want to be able to trace.
H-04Why the environmental permit assesses one machine and another one is being erected on site+
The provincial permit of June 2026 clears a wind farm of 36 Nordex turbines of 5.9 MW and 212.4 MW; the lender and the site, since March 2026, are 29 Vestas of 6.4 MW and 185.6 MW. The permit itself requires notifying «any type of modification» and updating the study if the machines change, and no addendum recording the change has surfaced. This is not a contradiction between sources: they are two official documents describing different configurations of the same project.
H-05Whether the project was admitted into the Buenos Aires provincial strategic investment regime+
It is what decides whether the 50% floor on purchases from Buenos Aires province suppliers applies instead of the 20% national one. Neither of the two separate searches we ran found an act declaring it admitted, and the project is far above the USD 50 million threshold that triggers the obligation.
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