By IANS
Buenos Aires : The British-Argentine joint venture Pan American Energy has announced discovery in southern Argentina of new oil and gas reserves in equivalent to 100 million barrels of crude, EFE news agency reported Wednesday.
The company, a 60-40 joint venture of British Petroleum and Argentina’s Bridas, also said in a press release that it will invest $1 billion in the exploration and production of hydrocarbons in the country.
The new reserves have been found in the Cerro Dragon concession area in the Patagonian province of Chubut, Argentina’s leading oil-producing region.
Pan American Energy “has consolidated itself as Argentina’s second-leading oil and gas producer,” the company, which also operates in Bolivia and will begin to do so in southern Chile’s Magallanes Region, said in the press release.
Meanwhile, Chubut’s coordination minister, Norberto Yahuar, said Tuesday that the discovery of the Cerro Dragon deposits will give the country hydrocarbons reserves enough for consumption for the next 14 years.
Yahuar said the Cerro Dragon area “had been ignored a decade ago” due to the lack of results from exploration, but he added that “the technology has changed” and stressed the “tremendous” work carried out by Pan American Energy.