The Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, and the Minister of Economy of Argentina, Luis Toto Caputo, sign tomorrow, the 18th, an agreement for the import of natural gas from Vaca Muerta, a field located between the provinces of Neuquén and Rio Negro. The expectation is that with the purchase of Argentine gas, the price of the input will fall on the Brazilian market.
According to the Ministry of Mines and Energy, gas from Vaca Muerta costs US$2 per million BTU and is expected to arrive in Brazil at a cost of US$7 to US$8 per million BTU, below the average price of around US$ 11/US$ 12 per million BTU practiced in Brazil.
The cost, however, will depend on the route chosen, among the five available, which has not yet been defined, and through the Bolivia-Brazil Gas Pipeline the expectation is that Brazil will be able to import 2 million cubic meters per day (m3/d), with the reversal of the gas pipeline that takes gas from Bolivia to Argentina.
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Other possibilities would be via Paraguay, building a new gas pipeline through the Paraguayan Chaco; connecting Argentina directly in Uruguaiana, in Rio Grande do Sul; connecting with Rio Grande do Sul through Uruguay; or converting Vaca Muerta gas into Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), which makes the product more expensive.
Minister Alexandre Silveira’s expectation is that Brazil will initially import 2 million m3/d; 10 million m3/d in the next three years; and reach 30 million m3/d by 2030, the same volume that Bolivia exports to Brazil, but which has been reduced due to the depletion of Bolivian production.
Ricardo Bellino from Ensina
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