Argentina's Neuquén achieves 31.28% reduction in methane emissions despite oil output surge

Argentina’s Neuquén province has successfully decoupled hydrocarbon production growth from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the Vaca Muerta shale formation, data from the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources suggest. 

Based on the first results from the provincial system for reporting GHG emissions, methane emissions in the hydrocarbon sector decreased by 31.28% between 2023 and 2025. This reduction occurred concurrently with a 31.55% increase in reported oil and gas production.

In 2026, Neuquén’s hydrocarbon output has continued to soar, highlighting the importance of the province’s emissions decrease. In July, the Neuquén province produced an average of 658,640 barrels of oil per day (bpd), a new record.

The data highlights a stark improvement in operational efficiency at the wellhead. from 2023 to 2025, methane emissions intensity, the volume of gas emitted per unit of energy produced, plummeted by 47.83%. Total reported GHG emissions across the sector also fell by 9.36%, while their overall intensity decreased by 31.10%.

This systematic tracking is governed by the provincial programme for monitoring and mitigating GHG emissions, established under resolution 258/2025 in direct collaboration with the Argentine Institute of Petroleum and Gas.

The minister of tourism, environment, and natural resources, Leticia Esteves, cited this regulatory framework as the primary driver of the structural shift.

“Today, we have concrete results: while production increased by more than 31%, methane emissions decreased by the same proportion,” Esteves said in a public statement cited by Vaca Muerta News. “This is the result of a political decision to strengthen the role of the state, work collaboratively with the operators and establish increasingly stringent monitoring and control tools.”

From a macroeconomic and operational standpoint, targeting methane is highly strategic. Because methane is the primary component of natural gas, venting or flaring it represents both an environmental liability and the direct loss of a monetisable energy resource.

“Reducing losses and measuring more accurately simultaneously strengthens environmental management and the quality of our production,” secretary of environment and natural resources Hipólito Salvatori said.

To complement operator-reported data, Neuquén is also utilising satellite telemetry from the United Nations’ methane alert and response system to independently detect and verify events of significant emissions. 

As Argentina positions Vaca Muerta as the foundation for a future global LNG export hub, demonstrating strict environmental compliance is a commercial necessity for entering international markets.

Undersecretary of climate change Santiago Nogueira confirmed this operational imperative, saying in a public statement, “Our objective is very concrete: to decouple the growth curve of production from methane emissions. Today we can identify where the main sources of emissions are located and direct efforts to mitigate them.”