Policy
Tender for hydrocarbon areas and technological development
The Ministry of Energy of Santa Cruz promotes the opening of international bids to recover an inactive hydrocarbon area using Canadian technology. The province is also coordinating operational tasks with the municipality of Pico Truncado to start up the industrial equipment of the green hydrogen plant.
- 06/09/2026 • 16:36
Jaime Alvarez
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The Government of the province of Santa Cruz launches an international public tender to reactivate the heavy oil field called Crecimiento Sur after two decades of inactivity in the region. The provincial Minister of Energy, Jaime Álvarez, confirms that the process seeks to attract foreign investment and generate genuine jobs through the application of modern exploitation systems. The initiative arises from efforts made in Canada and includes training local personnel in multilateral drilling techniques that reduce operational costs in the sector.
The Santa Cruz official details the technical aspects of the call and the need to introduce innovative methodologies to achieve economic viability in wells that presented severe extraction difficulties in the past.
"Yesterday, the information was released, the call for bids that has been made. Sur Río Deseado is an area that 20 years ago was tried to be exploited, but it was the type of existing oil, a very dense oil, which makes it very difficult to flow, transport, and produce, so it did not have good results 20 years ago," explains the head of the energy portfolio regarding the background of the area.
"Today, with new technologies existing in the market, low-cost, because at that time steam or solvents could be used, but today there are other types of technologies that are much more economical and would allow this type of production and put it into operation," adds Álvarez when justifying the viability of the current call to companies.
The planning of initial activities projects a direct impact on the local labor market through complementary infrastructure works and the planned professional training schemes.
"Initially, exploratory wells will be drilled, which we hope will go very well, so a drilling rig will surely be working, plus some activities of their own related to construction, because we have to carry out the facility, the tankage for that type of oil, so surely more than 100 people will be working on the construction of the tankage, pipelines and drilling," states the interviewee about the estimated sources of employment.
"It is very likely that trainers from Canada will come to train our personnel and adapt our equipment, as it is also possible that people from Santa Cruz will go to Canada to learn how to work," the minister advances in relation to international technical exchange.
On the other hand, the provincial portfolio is coordinating joint actions with municipal authorities to recover and start up the equipment of the experimental green hydrogen plant.
"The Pico Truncado plant is experimental, we are working with the municipality to try to operate it. Let us keep in mind that there was a hydrolyzer that was working for a while, a smaller one, and the most important industrial hydrolyzer was never put into operation," Álvarez explains when describing the current building situation.
"We are working with the municipality, now they are being placed in a project to install photovoltaic panels for the generation of electricity for its partial or total operation, plus we managed to contact the technicians who installed that hydrolyzer, which is where the water molecule is broken," the official states regarding the steps planned for the reactivation of the technological complex.
