An Argentine company is proposing an innovative method of transporting gas to make hydrocarbon exploitation more profitable in Vaca Muerta, one of the largest unconventional deposits in the world and which requires multi-million dollar investments.
Vaca Muerta, located in Patagonia, is the bet to reverse Argentina's energy deficit, but requires multimillion-dollar investments for its development.
The company Galileo Technologies proposes a transportation system that saves money when exploiting a wells discarded or in exploratory phase.
"There is a whole volume of gas that is lost. With the “virtual gas pipelines” there is a solution that allows that well to be put into production from day one. This allows the producer to lower their drilling costs, because what they lost before now generates income," said the executive president of Galileo Technologies, Osvaldo del Campo.
In Buenos Aires, where the company is based, you can see the "virtual gas pipelines": huge trucks that carry the equipment to liquefy gas at the well and transport it to distribution and regasification centers.
Today, the company's 14 trucks have a daily gas liquefaction capacity of 300.000 cubic meters, which is very limited.
With these trucks, the company hopes to exploit wells that, due to their low production, do not warrant building a gas pipeline or to take advantage of the gas that is usually lost during the experimental stage of the wells.
"The price horizon that the Government is giving is already boosting production (of gas) and that boost is generating a greater number of wells that are being drilled (…) That is why we are betting very strongly", he added from the Field.
In an effort to boost production, the national government implemented a decreasing system of subsidies for new unconventional gas from Vaca Muerta. Next year, it will pay US$7,5 per million Btu, in 2019 it will pay US$7, in 2020 US$6,5 and in 2021, US$6.
A year ago, Galileo began developing a pilot plan for a virtual pipeline for compressed natural gas (CNG) with state-controlled oil company YPF, and will begin operating one for LNG this year.
Source: Reuters
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