YPF & Statoil Signed an Agreement for Argentina Offshore

The CEO of YPF, Ricardo Darre, and executive vice president of Exploration for Statoil, Tim Dodson, signed a cooperation agreement to deepen the knowledge YPF holds on Argentine offshore.

The agreement, which was signed at the headquarters of Statoil in Oslo , Norway, will allow the company to carry out joint studies in an area of mutual interest, which mainly covers the continental slope of the Argentine offshore.

the area extends over 360,000 square kilometers ranging from the border with Uruguay to 45 ° latitude (north of Comodoro Rivadavia, Chubut province), where water depths vary between 500 and 3,500 meters. Is a frontier area, ie high potential and high risk, where both companies believe there may be several hydrocarbon prospects to be investigated in the basins of Salado, Colorado and Argentina. For YPF and Statoil access to new information will be critical to improve knowledge of the potential of the area. The agreement provides forthe study of new 2D seismic to be acquired in an area of common interest. 2D seismic is standard practice in the oil and gas industry consisting of sending and receiving sound waves from a boat equipped with technology for this purpose. In a second stage, we proceed to the processing, analysis and interpretation of the information obtained.

So far, exploratory efforts in the Argentine Sea were focused in shallow waters of the continental shelf, in the basins of the Salado and Colorado; in addition to others made in the waters of the basin of the Golfo San Jorge and Malvinas basin.

In recent years, YPF made a comprehensive study of the offshore South Atlantic (Uruguay and Argentina) covering all basins and includes the potential in deep water, look who joined the company strategy towards the end of 2012. Since then, YPF has systematically implemented a series of activities.

the agreement will allow these efforts add YPF experience in deep offshore Statoil, built mainly in Brazil and the North Sea.