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• Argentina’s Dead Cow: Ground Zero for Next Shale B …

• Transocean, Seadrill Consider Tie-Up

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Argentina’s Dead Cow: Ground Zero for Next Shale Boom

Talk about peaking U.S. shale is getting louder.

Meanwhile, in Argentina, a second shale boom is brewing.

Oil and gas drilling in the Vaca Muerta play is running at a record pace.

All you need is a friendly government

Argentina’s vocally libertarian president is not universally loved.

But he sure must be loved by the local energy industry.

Thanks to pro-business legislation, drilling in the Dead Cow region has soared.

And so has production.

That cow’s definitely not dead in the literal sense.

The number of wells fracked every month has topped 1,500 this year.

That’s up from less than 250 in 2016.

Natgas production from the play has reached over 80 million cu m this year.

That’s up from less than 5 million cu m back in 2016.

The Vaca Muerta is booming, alright.

And it could turn Argentina into an international energy heavyweight.

One more challenger for OPEC

The Vaca Muerta play could produce 2 million bpd of crude “without any problem,” one former oil minister says.

Currently, Argentina’s total is 400,000 bpd.

That oil would be easy to export—all you need are some tankers and a terminal.

LNG would be trickier.

Export terminals for LNG take a lot of time to build.

Yet if the play lives up to the promise, it could change Argentina’s fortunes.

And add another challenger to OPEC’s global market might.

Transocean, Seadrill Consider Tie-Up

Transocean and Seadrill may merge amid a pickup in offshore investments.

The two majors have fallen behind rivals recently.

A tie-up could change their fortunes.

An offshore revival

Offshore oil and gas investment has been depressed for years.

This only started to change in the past year or so.

A few major discoveries was all it took to put offshore oil back in the spotlight.

Supermajors are pledging billions in investments.

Exxon is talking about a 10-billion project in Nigeria.

TotalEnergies just approved a $10.5-billion investment in Suriname.

The list goes on.

Per Rystad Energy, total offshore investment could hit $250 billion in 2025.

It’s high time for the offshore drillers to join the party.

Especially if those drillers have seen their stock drop by double digital since the start of 2024.

Transocean has seen its share lose 35% since January.

For Seadrill, the decline has been milder but still sizable, at 26%.

If a merger is what it takes to improve viability, then a merger should be.

After all, why not take a page from Big Oil’s playbook.

The series of recent megamergers wasn’t a whim, after all.

It was a series of strategic decisions.

The next oil boom…

…seems like it would take place offshore.

Shale recovery rates are declining.

There are few remaining possibilities for a major onshore discovery.

Meanwhile, offshore discoveries are coming in.

With added benefits.

Lower costs are one of these.

Longer production lives are another.

There’s also the bonus point for lower emissions.

The next oil boom is definitely coming offshore.

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