Vista Energy Might Hold The Key To The Vaca Muerta Bonanza

The largest shale play outside North America has proven to be a tough nut to crack over the last decade. The formation is the Vaca Muerta shale in west-central Argentina, which remains to be fully developed despite efforts by some of the world’s largest oil companies – including Chevron, Shell, BP, and ConocoPhillips – to make a go of it there. Challenges related to transportation infrastructure, supply chains, and a difficult commodity price environment during the play’s early years conspired to limit the profitability prospects in the region, but persistence is paying off as production increases and is now equivalent to around 60 percent of Argentinean daily consumption.

Vista Energy, an independent producer with a $5 billion market cap, is determined to crack the nut and has made Vaca Muerta the centerpiece of its company’s operations and a core draw for investors. Vista’s rapidly rising production in the area, currently over 65,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d), has led to stock price growth of 464% over the last five years. To celebrate that success, Vista Energy CEO Miguel Galuccio marked the 5-year anniversary of the company’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange by ringing the bell to open the September 3 trading session.