Continental buys Pluspetrol shale field, says Luis Caputo

Fracking magnate Harold Hamm’s Continental Resources Inc is entering Argentina’s burgeoning shale patch, according to the South America nation’s economy minister.

Hamm met recently with President Javier Milei, whose libertarian reforms got a resounding endorsement from voters in midterm elections last month. And on Monday, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said in a post on X that Continental is acquiring the Los Toldos II Oeste shale field from Pluspetrol SA, a producer owned by two rich Argentine families.

Continental didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Oklahoma-based company’s foray into the Vaca Muerta formation in Patagonia comes as US independent drillers who helped shape remarkable growth in the Permian Basin eye ways to take their shale expertise across borders to South America’s second-largest economy.

Argentina is aiming to produce one millions barrels a day of shale oil by the end of the decade and about half as much liquefied natural gas.

Pluspterol confirmed in a regulatory filing that it was ceding 90 percent of its position in the Los Toldos field to Continental.