Geology and History of the Argentinian Shale Plays
and the Emergence of the Vaca Muerta
Vaca Muerta
means “dead cow” in Spanish. It is also the name of a rock unit, the Vaca
Muerta Formation. Its age is Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. It is located
in the Neuquén Basin in northern Patagonia,
Argentina, just east of the Andes. Shale gas and oil occur in the Vaca Muerta
in economic quantities. As can be seen in the figure below the oil, wet gas,
and dry gas windows/fairways are fairly well defined. Though called a shale the
Vaca Muerta is more specifically a marlstone, or a carbonaceous (carbon-rich)
mudstone. Composition of mudstone is similar to shale, but shale has fissility,
or parallel layered bedding. The Vaca Muerta is considered to host the world's
second-largest shale gas reserves and the fourth-largest shale oil reserves. The
play is ready for ‘harvest mode’ as resource plays like shale can accommodate
and as reserves are predictable. Investments in and construction of pipelines
and other infrastructure are ongoing and will help bring more gas and oil to
consumption areas including some for export, both through pipeline and LNG as
new infrastructure is built. Adding in the potential reserves of the Early to Middle
Jurassic Los Molles Formation a few thousand feet below Vaca Muerta could make
the Neuquén Basin almost rival the Appalachian Basin in unconventional
reserves.
Argentina
hosts 24 known sedimentary basins. 6 of them produce hydrocarbons. The Neuquén
Basin hosts the most oil and gas and currently produces the most oil and gas as
well, soon (in the next few years) to be over half of the country’s oil and
gas. The Neuquén Basin hosts the 2nd largest shale gas field and the
4th largest oil accumulation in the world.
Hydrocarbon
Play Windows in the Vaca Muerta Shale in the Neuquén Basin. Source: The Vaca
Muerta Formation: How a Source Became a Reservoir. Carlos Macellari and Jane Whaley.
GeoExPro. December 10, 2019. The Vaca Muerta Formation: How a
Source Became a Reservoir – GeoExpro
Spanish company Repsol-YPF made the initial Vaca Muerta
oil discovery in 2010. In 2013 the EIA estimated technically recoverable reserves
in the formation of 16.2 billion barrels of oil and 308 TCF of gas. Repsol in
2012 estimated 22.5 billion barrels of oil. By 2017 there were about 500
horizontal wells drilled in the Vaca Muerta. The Neuquén Basin and the other Argentinian basins also host conventional gas reserves that provided half of Argentina’s gas. In addition,
there are also substantial unconventional resources in the Early to Middle
Jurassic Los Molles Formation in the Nequen Basin. Shale gas reserves of the Los Molles are pegged
at 275 TCF and oil reserves at 3.7 billion barrels. With these high reserve
numbers, the Argentinian shale resources should be able to be accessed and
delivered for domestic consumption and export. The potential benefits to the long-struggling
Argentinian economy are enormous. Before the Vaca Muerta and Los Molles were
confirmed Argentina was relying on declining conventional gas and importing much
gas from Bolivia and other nearby countries. Years of underinvestment in domestic
oil and gas development and production also made it harder and slower to develop
shale gas. However, they did have a conventional oilfield industry which made
things easier. With total shale gas reserves of 583 TCF Argentina should be
able to supply its natural gas and oil needs for decades to come and to export
gas and oil by pipeline to neighboring countries and by LNG, potentially from
both South American shores. Sand for high volume fracking is mined in different
parts of Argentina as well as imported. Train routes have been built to
transport sand. It is also transported via truck.
Natural gas pipelines transport gas to both South
American coasts, to the east to Buenos Aires and other coastal cities, and to
the west to the Chilean coast where gas deliveries have resumed after several
years of no pipeline exports. There are LNG facilities of some sort on both
coasts with mega export terminals under proposal.
The Vaca
Muerta Formation was long known to be a major source rock for conventional hydrocarbon plays in the basin. The first well targeting the Vaca Muerta was
drilled by Repsol in 2010 and the first horizontal well was drilled in 2011. In
2013 YPK entered into a joint venture agreement with Chevron to invest $1.5
billion to drill 132 wells. Other agreements to drill were also announced. By
the second quarter of 2014 161 wells were drilled in the project at a cost of
$1.24 billion. By January 2015, YPF and Chevron had invested $3 billion in Vaca
Muerta. Also in 2015, YPF partnered with China’s Sinopec and Russia’s Gazprom
for further development. By 2015 about 30 companies were active in Vaca Muerta
development.
Vaca Muerta gas
occurs in shales with high organic content in accumulations that can be readily
tapped. Gas in the Los Molles formation also occurs in shales but according to
a 2016 USGS resource assessment about three quarters of Los Molles gas is in
tight sandstones. Both the Los Molles and Vaca Muerta source rocks were
developed at an early stage after transgression/ingression into a trough that
filled with deep water. The early oldest parts of both formations have the best
source rocks. The Vaca Muerta production zones are the La Cocina and the El
Organico. The La Cocina is oldest and below.
Seismic
Stratigraphy Analysis for Vaca Muerta Formation, Argentina, at Fortín de Piedra showing three
transgressive-regressive cycles, both in a well log and in a north-south
arbitrary seismic line. Source: Characterization of lower Vaca Muerta at Fortín
de Piedra in Neuquén Basin, Argentina. Horacio Acevedo and Alejandro Bande.
April 2018. The Leading Edge 37(4):255-260. DOI:10.1190/tle37040255.1
Set of logs and detailed stratigraphic sequence for the
lower Vaca Muerta. Track 1 is colored by gamma ray. In track 2, the P-impedance
log is in blue and laboratory measurements of TOC from cuttings are in red.
This clearly shows good correlation in which the higher the TOC, the lower the
impedance. Between tracks 4 and 5, the transgressive-regressive sedimentary
cycles of the lower Vaca Muerta are shown, locating the MFS for La Cocina and
El Orgánico cycles. The track on the right is Poisson's ratio, showing no
significant differences between La Cocina, El Orgánico, and above. Source:
Characterization of lower Vaca Muerta at Fortín de Piedra in Neuquén Basin,
Argentina. Horacio Acevedo and Alejandro Bande. April 2018. The Leading Edge
37(4):255-260. DOI:10.1190/tle37040255.1
There is very good geological, geochemical, and chemostratigraphic analyses for the Vaca Muerta and Los Molles formations in a 2016 article in the Brazilian Journal of Geology. This paper shows that the two petroleum systems are different but also mixed in some places with gas migrating from the Los Molles into the Vaca Muerta along the Huincul Fault which trends east-west across the southern part of the Neuquén Basin. Chemostratigraphic and mud gas carbon isotope analyses have shown that “Vaca Muerta-Quintuco objectives are associated with authigenic elements, in limited horizons. Enhancement of the Quintuco reservoir by deep circulating fluids (thermobaric reservoir) is suggested.” The paper also shows that Los Molles gas is thermally more mature in general and that the Lower Los Molles is the main source rock of that formation. Isotope reversals and presumed water reforming of hydrocarbons have been associated with the overpressure seen in the Lower Los Molles. This overpressure may bode well for large wells as has been the case in other shale gas basins.
Geochemistry
can also determine things like water depth during deposition, or whether
sediments were deposited in oxic or anoxic conditions. Deposition in anoxic
(low oxygen) conditions in deep water leads to preservation of organic matter
and higher TOC in the rock.
The Neuquén Basin formed as a back-arc basin, a zone of spreading or rifting behind the magmatic arc system associated with magmatic movements influenced by subduction. It is a magmatic island arc encountering a subducting oceanic plate with the back arc basin forming behind the magmatic front that overrides the subducting plate. Upwelling or convection currents in the mantle transfer heat toward the surface where volcanoes and hydrothermal vents form. Hydrothermal fluids also helped to develop secondary porosity in the Quintuco Formation of the Vaca Muerta system.
Model of a back arc basin
in the context of an island arc system with subducting oceanic crust. Example
from Micronesia. Source: Wikipedia. Back-arc
basin - Wikipedia
In a 2014
paper on the Geology of the Neuquén Basin, Authors Silvia Barredo and Luis Stinco
note in their conclusions:
“Unconventional
shale reservoirs of the Neuquén Basin are strongly related to geodynamical
context of the Gondwana margin. It is a back-arc basin whose infilling followed
the dynamics of the convergent margin and the magmatic arc. Changes in sequence
geometry occurred in-phase with the intra-continental elastic stress
relaxation. Faults undergone extensional and compressional reactivation during
rifting and also during the uplifting of the Huincul High. Thus, each rifting
stage changed the geometry and space for sedimentation which in turn
conditioned shale deposition and organic matter preservation under different
climates. Moreover, shales display low permeability derived from the
depositional history, the resulting mineralogy and the chemical conditions
which are at the same time constrained by tectonic, eustatic and climatic
variations. Thus, the sedimentary infill must be studied, from the
tectonic/geodynamic and paleoclimatic approach, but focusing the reconstruction
on the sequential arrangement of its elements.
“Finally, all of the presently source rocks like, Puesto Kauffman, Los Molles, Vaca Muerta and Agrio formations can be considered unconventional reservoirs due to the large non expelled volume of hydrocarbons that they record. The reason why it is so rests on multiple factors but one of the most relevant seemed to be the oblique convergence and the consequent strain partitioning operating over a reworked lithosphere with a strong controlling fabric from the Paleozoic onwards. Understanding the Gondwana margin geodynamic evolution is necessary to model the basin for predicting the existence or absence of oil and gas prone shales among different depocenters.”
A study
presented in March 2023 at a Canadian SPE conference, of natural fracture and
oil wettability variations in the Vaca Muerta, concluded that the Lower Vaca
Muerta has better reservoir quality, including lower water saturation, larger
pores, higher TOC, and greater natural fracture intensity. The study
incorporated cores, micro-resistivity images and outcrops. The study also
considered and incorporated thin bed heterogeneity in the analysis. The study
highlights the variability of natural fracture intensity and oil-wet
characteristics in each stratigraphic unit of the Vaca Muerta. As would be
expected, pore size was found to be a key factor in thermal maturity,
permeability, and wettability.
A study presented in November 2020 at a Latin American SPE conference indicated that the Vaca Muerta reservoir can be a good candidate for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) “due to the large resource in-place, low ultimate recovery factors from primary depletion, a substantial basin wide infrastructure, a tremendous subsurface data set, and a knowledge base that has evolved over the life of the field.” The authors advocated for a chemical cocktail to enhance oil recovery rather than just simple water flooding.
A December
2019 article in GeoExPro by Carlos Macellari and Jane Whaley note that only a
small portion of Vaca Muerta hydrocarbons have been expelled to reservoirs
above like the Quintuco carbonates and clastics:
“In fact, it has been calculated that only about 20%
of hydrocarbons generated in the formation have been expelled, primarily
because the overpressure barrier (0.75 to 0.85 psi/ft) formed by the overlying
Quintuco Formation has helped to retain the hydrocarbons within the Vaca
Muerta.”
“The Vaca Muerta Formation has thick, organically-rich
sections between 30 and 400m thick, allowing multiple navigation horizons; plus
excellent porosities, ranging from 4 to 16%; and TOCs as high as 17%,
particularly towards the base of the unit, which represents the maximum
flooding level of the basin. In addition, the unit is overpressured and has a
relatively low percentage of clay, making this rock ideal for hydraulic stimulation.
These are all excellent properties for an unconventional shale reservoir.”
Current Production, Projects, and Challenges
Now, in 2023, state-run YPF-SA is set to
increase investment further as pipelines, shipping ports, and expanded export
facilities are being built and/or expanded to accommodate higher production. Development
has been hampered over the last decade from what it could be by different
issues including pipeline bottlenecks, some public opposition, changing
commodities prices, and Argentina’s unique financial problems. Now, with a
predicted $8 billion trade surplus in 3 or 4 years, Argentina is poised to
improve domestic economics. In 2022 there was a $5 billion trade deficit. This
year trade is expected to be balanced with surpluses thereafter.
YPF-SA is
partnered with Malaysia’s Petronas, another long-time Vaca Muerta player, to
build a major LNG export facility near Buenos Aires. YPF is hoping for a final
investment decision (FID) by the end of the year. The Nestor Kirchner pipeline,
currently under construction, is set to relieve gas bottlenecks and be able to
deliver high volumes to the export facility. YPF indicated they may have
trouble with the $10 billion in financing needed. Argentina first tried
exporting LNG from 2010-2013. In 2019 they rented a floating liquefaction unit
which began exporting in late 2019 but was shut down due to Covid and the lease
was cancelled as gas was not in demand. Thus, with the new pipelines and export
facilities there is now a good chance of economic success in developing oil and
gas for export.
Vaca Muerta shale and tight gas plays were
producing 1 BCF/day in December 2018 making up a little over 20% of Argentinian
gas production. As also seen in the graph below domestic gas production had
been declining steadily and significantly since 2011. In mid-2019 Argentina was
still importing gas in the winter months as consumption would outrun supply. In
2019 pipeline exports resumed to Chile and Brazil and a new pipeline to Uruguay
was operational. Exports restarted in 2019 after 9 years of no exports and
imports of up to 1.2 BCF/day. By September 2022 the governor of Neuquén noted
that the Vaca Muerte was producing 91 million cubic meters per day (3.2 billion
cubic feet per day) of natural gas and that expected December 2022 oil output would
exceed 308,000 barrels per day. Thus, Vaca Muerta gas production has tripled in
4 years. This gas production increase has allowed Argentina to reduce gas
imports by about $4 billion in the winter of 2022. However, the country also
spent $4.3 billion importing gas which should not be necessary in a country
with such large reserves. The governor also added that this year’s oil exports
would be valued at $2 billion, five times the value of the previous year’s oil exports.
The 563 km Nestor Kirchner pipeline, currently under construction, is expected
to initially deliver 11 million cubic meters (about 385MMCF/day) to Buenos
Aires, mainly for winter domestic use to further reduce imports. After all
phases are completed, it is expected to carry about 1.5 BCF/day. The pipeline carrying
more supply is expected to end the country’s need to import gas. This capacity
will be needed as both gas and oil pipelines are currently full. Some oil is
being transported by truck.
In 2022 oil
from the Vaca Muerta made up 44% of Argentina’s total oil output. Sometime this
year it is expected to become over 50% of Argentinian oil production. Gas and
oil production from the Vaca Muerta has barely begun as vast swathes of acreage
remain that can be drilled. Production began to grow in earnest in 2018. In
2022 the Vaca Muerta made up 39% of Argentinian gas production.
A December 2018 article in the Journal of Petroleum Technology compared Vaca Muerta production on the oil prone Loma Campana block to US oil plays. Vaca Muerta wells have lower initial decline rates than Bakken or Permian wells. 30-year EURs were projected to be lower than the Permian, just below Bakken core and above Eagle Ford wells. The Loma Campana area is in or near the black oil window and has very little associated gas and low GORs that don’t grow through time like in some US oil plays. That should help with keeping flaring to a minimum in that area.
The Neuquén Basin is currently bottlenecked with inadequate
pipeline takeaway capacity out of the region. Much like Appalachia more
outgoing pipelines are needed. Growth has been slowed by Argentina’s economic
problems which impede attracting financing, Covid, supply chain and oilfield
infrastructure issues, and issues with utilities, local pipelines, gas
distribution system development for newly growing towns, and other issues. According
to Reuters:
“Oil and gas executives said a complex economic
environment - inflation heading towards 100% and tough capital controls
limiting access to foreign exchange - was a drag on investment. They want a
special regulatory framework for the sector.”
"Vaca Muerta's future production it at risk
because there aren't enough dollars for SMEs or oil service firms," Juan
José Aranguren, a former Shell executive and government official, said in a
seminar in Buenos Aires.”
“Foreign currency access is vital to pay for imported
services or equipment, he said.”
Another issue
is the scarcity of fracking crews and ‘frack sets.’ Argentina has 8 frack crews
compared to the US with about 280. More crews and more equipment are needed. Horizontal
well lengths have increased somewhat with HZ lengths now averaging about 8500
ft, comparable to most U.S. shale plays.
YPF announced
recently that they plan a drilling campaign in the oil prone northern part of
the basin near Mendoza. Thus, the productive potential of the basin is still
being delineated. Thus, it seems likely that high levels of oilfield activity
will be clustered in different parts of the basin and eventually throughout the
basin as the different blocks are drilled.
A recent
well-spacing study of the La Calera wet gas field near the city of Anelo, notes
that the field has 30 Vaca Muerta wells on 3-well pads. Wells in the field are
landed at three different landing points with as much as 120m (400 ft) of vertical
stratigraphic difference. The well study was aimed at using parent-child well
relationships to determine optimal well spacing. At a spacing of 350m (1150ft)
interference tests were run utilizing water tracers and documenting pressure
changes downhole and at the well head. They also did interference tests at a
pad that had been producing for 2 years to compare. The first test on a newer
pad revealed moderate well interference due to frac hits. Thus, ideal well-spacing
for this area is still being worked out.
Vista Oil
& Gas drilled some very good Vaca Muerta wells in 2019-2020 that were part
of a machine-learning study by Novi Labs. These wells were comparable to U.S.
shale wells: long laterals, closely spaced frac stages, optimized higher proppant
volumes, and optimized high pump rates. The wells producing from the La Cocina
zone below those producing from the El Organico zone, produced oil at higher
rates, among the highest in the basin. Novi Labs utilizes a statistical technique
with Shapley values, or SHAP values, that forecasts and analyzes multiple
variables to model well production and other variables with machine learning algorithms.
In their evaluation of the Vista wells their conclusions suggested that longer
laterals and bigger fracs had more effect than geology even though the geology
was still quite favorable. Novi developed a public data Vaca Muerta model that
can be licensed and deployed with their cloud software.
Halliburton touted their rotary steerable system (RSS) in a 2019 case study. They achieved the longest lateral (at the time) of nearly 11,000 ft, 100% in target window, and limited “walking” to the side as Vaca Muerta wells with high temperature and pressure can do. The temperature in some parts of the field is quite hot, over 300° F (149° C), comparable to the Haynesville Shale play in Louisiana and Texas, where there is also a walking tendency. Walking to the side increases doglegs and makes drilling and navigation more difficult. Rotary steerable systems utilize better motor control and closer-to-the-bit survey and gamma data to achieve an overall smoother wellbore which can be a need where highly doglegged wellbores are common. Halliburton credited the ability to sense sudden directional changes in real time so that immediate trajectory corrections could be made. They also credited “advanced electronics, sophisticated algorithms, and high-speed processors built within the tool which enable complex downhole calculations and precise, real-time measurement-while-drilling (MWD).”
Vaca Muerta Gas Production Through 2022. Source: Rystad Energy
Los Molles Formation: Geology, Wells, Production,
and Potential
The Neuquén
Basin began filling in Late Triassic times. The Los Molles is Early to Middle
Jurassic. It was deposited just after the end of major syn-rifting, or
structural extension/rifting so faulting and deposition were concurrent previously
in the Precuyo Formation but now nearing the end of tectonic activity. However,
the early post-rift period still involved deposition controlled by previous
tectonics and some fault reactivation, so is still considered to be syn-rift. The
Precuyo Formation below the Los Molles “consists of mainly alluvial to
fluvial-lacustrine facies interfingering with volcaniclastic deposits in the
lower section and significant pyroclastic facies in the upper section.” After
the ending of volcanism, the rifting gradually shifted to thermal subsidence for
depositional geometry. An embayment in the south of the basin led to
sedimentation flow direction of NW and WNW and made the basin shape triangular.
The rift basin was deep (a starved basin), so the Lower Los Molles was likely deposited
into deep anoxic waters ideal for preserving source rock. After rifting there
were rapidly subsiding, fault-bounded and narrow troughs brought about by
reactivation. These included stepping border normal faults and half grabens
filled with sediment. The basin was later affected by synchronous compression
and fault reactivation to a Late Cretaceous to Cenozoic foreland basin stage.
The Lower Los
Molles is a high-quality hydrocarbon source rock shale/mudstone. It is
interbedded with marine and deltaic deposits. The depocenter in the center of
the basin is considered to be a gas prone basin center gas system.
Luis Stinco
and Silvia Barredo have a great paper on the geomechanics and electrofacies of
the Los Molles, published in October 2021. They write this about the basin:
“The basin comprises petroleum systems distributed in
a Mesozoic sedimentary column dominated by clastic, carbonatic and pyroclastic
rocks (Legarretaand Villar, 2011). A complex combination of source and
reservoir rocks with interfingered seals together with stratigraphic and
structural traps gave place to different conventional, unconventional (shale
and tight) and naturally fractured reservoirs.”
And this about the Los Molles:
“The Los Molles Formation is one of the unconventional
reservoirs of the basin. Because of its mostly synrift nature, it displays
lateral and vertical heterogeneities that exert a strong impact on hydrocarbon
recovery (Cruz et al., 2002; Martínez et al., 2008; Kim et al., 2014). Basin
dynamics, eustatic sea level and climate controlled the areal distribution,
depth, thickness, porosity, permeability, mineral composition, reservoir
pressure and geomechanics of this unit. Successful exploration and production require
a thorough knowledge of the basin history which is possible integrating surface
and subsurface analysis to model the petroleum systems. Micro and macro scale
analysis involves the study of sediments ―that encompasses, from an engineering
standpoint, a multiphase system of mineral particles, rock fragments,
bioparticles, etc.,― where the layout results in a porous structure that
contains fluids such as water, hydrocarbons and gas accordingly to geomechanics
and facies distribution.”
About 100 wells
or so have penetrated the Los Molles so there is much more to learn about the
formation. Stinco and Barredo’s study used geophysical logs from 15 wells as
well as cores, outcrops, mudlogs, and other information. I couldn’t dig up much
about recent Los Molles well production which I assume is gas being produced
from the depocenter area to the west. I think I had read that YPF and Pan
American had planned to drill 50 horizontal Los Molles wells within a few years
(by 2019 if I recall) but I’m not sure if that materialized. I also read that
multi-zone vertical wells were being completed in the Los Molles as well as the
conventional reservoirs in within the Quintuco and Lajas Formations as late as
2017.
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Operator Drills Country’s Longest Lateral and Deepest Well in Unconventional Field. Case Study. Halliburton. 2019. iCruise-RSS-Argentina.pdf (brandfolder.io)
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