Argentina’s oil output and exports are rising, and Milei credits changes to economic rules. He also links the energy boom to debt pressures and his broader reform agenda.
Argentina’s energy boom is giving President Javier Milei a powerful argument for his economic programme: oil production is nearing one million barrels a day, exports are expanding, and the country’s energy trade balance has swung into surplus. At Argentina Oil & Gas Patagonia 2026, he cast Vaca Muerta as evidence that changes to economic rules can turn resource potential into production and export revenue.
That case comes with a broader claim. Milei described the shale formation as an “underground revolution” that could help drive economic growth across Argentina. The production figures he presented show a sharp rise, though the speech also acknowledged domestic economic strains, including slower growth and inflation falling less quickly than his government had hoped.
Production and exports climb
Speaking at the expo’s opening at the Espacio DUAM venue in Neuquén, Milei said Argentina was approaching one million barrels of oil production per day. National output reached 932,000 barrels a day in August 2026, according to figures he cited, up from about 635,000 in 2023. He called the latest level a record, above the previous high set in 1998.
Vaca Muerta accounts for much of that increase. The formation’s crude output rose from an average of 310,000 barrels a day in 2023 to more than 670,000 in August 2026—more than doubling in three years. Neuquén Province, which hosts the shale development, now produces over 600,000 barrels a day, Milei said.
Exports have followed production higher. Milei put Argentina’s average oil exports at 128,000 barrels a day in 2023, with volumes doubling so far in 2026. In July, exports came close to 330,000 barrels a day. He also said the country had recorded more than US$10 billion in exports in a single month, a new record.
The figures underpin Milei’s contention that Argentina is shifting from meeting domestic energy needs to becoming one of the region’s leading exporters. The pace of that shift matters beyond the oil sector: export earnings can ease pressure on the country’s external accounts, while higher production depends on sustained investment in wells, transport and related infrastructure.
Policy changes at the centre of Milei’s case
Milei attributed the sector’s expansion to his administration’s economic reforms. He argued that earlier price controls, restrictions on exports and controls on foreign exchange had weakened incentives to invest. He also criticised the “barril criollo,” a domestic crude pricing arrangement, and energy tariff subsidies, saying they distorted the signals producers faced.
“For a decade, Vaca Muerta was operating at half capacity, with prices held down, foreign exchange controls and fear of investing,” he said. With different rules in place, he argued, Argentina has begun to increase exports.
His speech framed energy as a source of productivity as well as export income. For much of human history, he said, production depended on the physical strength of people and animals. Access to energy changed that equation, in his account, and helped power the Industrial Revolution and the growth of wealth.
That history served a present-day purpose: Milei presented natural resources as an engine that can multiply economic output when policy allows production to expand. “Today we broke the record for exports in a single month, exceeding US$10 billion,” he said.
Energy surplus and financing needs
The president said Argentina’s energy trade balance had moved from annual deficits of as much as US$5 billion to a surplus above US$10 billion. He connected that improvement to the government’s fiscal position and financing requirements, pointing to US$25 billion in debt maturities.
His argument was that a fiscal deficit combined with a negative energy balance would have left the country needing substantially more external financing. A stronger energy balance, by contrast, improves one part of the equation even as the debt obligations remain. The speech offered no detailed breakdown of the figures, but it made the energy sector central to Milei’s explanation of how Argentina can manage its funding pressures.
He also defended the pace of disinflation. The government, he said, has reduced the rate at which prices rise compared with levels before he took office. At the same time, he conceded that critics were concerned about slower economic growth and inflation easing more gradually than expected. That admission gives the energy success a clear political role: it is one of the administration’s most visible measures of progress amid a more difficult domestic picture.
RIGI and the wider reform pitch
Milei gave a prominent place to RIGI, the scheme he described as a tool for attracting capital and rebuilding Argentina’s credibility. His stated ambition is to bring the wider economy closer to the conditions offered by the programme over time.
“We are not going to make the RIGI converge towards the disastrous structure that brought the country down. We are going to make it converge towards the RIGI,” he said. “In the long run, the entire Argentine economy will be one big RIGI.”
The remarks position energy development as part of a larger effort to change how investment is treated across the country. Milei also said the government expected to reach 18,000 deregulation measures by the end of October. He presented those changes, alongside rising oil output, as signs of a wider shift in economic rules.
The claim that the reforms will translate into broad-based growth remains the larger test. Vaca Muerta’s production gains are concrete, and the export figures point to a sector that has become more consequential for Argentina’s external accounts. The extent to which those gains spread to other industries and regions will determine how far the energy story can support the president’s wider economic case.
From Neuquén to a national growth model
Neuquén’s role in the oil expansion made it the centrepiece of Milei’s speech, but he pointed to projects elsewhere as evidence that resource development could reach beyond the province. He cited oil pipeline and liquefied natural gas projects in Río Negro, as well as mining investment in Catamarca, San Juan and Salta.
“We can make a thousand Vaca Muertas flourish throughout the length and breadth of the country,” he said. The line captures the ambition behind his argument: apply the same production logic across Argentina’s regions and resources, with energy and mining serving as growth drivers.
Milei tied that economic vision directly to politics, arguing that voters would choose between a model centred on the state and what he called a model of freedom in the 2027 elections. “I refuse to believe that Argentines are going to vote to go backwards,” he said.
The president closed by insisting Argentina had moved from promises to results. “The era of potential is over. If in 2023 we were full of promises, today we are full of realities,” he said.
For now, the strongest evidence behind that assertion is concentrated in oil: output at Vaca Muerta has more than doubled since 2023, national production has reached a record, and exports have climbed. The next measure of the “underground revolution” will be whether that momentum can sustain investment, ease external financing pressure and carry into the wider economy.
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