The works awarded to Técnicas Reunidas include engineering, purchasing and construction management services for a hydrocarbon storage and dispatch terminal in the Argentine project.

Spanish multinational Técnicas Reunidas has been awarded a US$440 million engineering and management contract for the Argentine Vaca Muerta project, the company announced on Thursday.

The Vaca Muerta project is a large deposit that extends over 30,000 square kilometers in several provinces in central Argentina.

It is the largest oil project in the country and has one of the largest reserves of unconventional oil and gas in the world.

The works awarded to the Spanish company by VMOS, a company owned by YPF and responsible for the development of the project, include engineering, purchasing and construction management services for a hydrocarbon storage and dispatch terminal to be located in Punta Colorada, on the coast of the province of Río Negro.

The terminal will have a storage capacity of 600,000 cubic metres and will be divided into five tanks. Its dispatch capacity will be 62,000 m3 per day through two single-buoys that can load tankers.

The contract awarded to Técnicas Reunidas will be worth approximately US$440 million, of which more than US$70 million will correspond to engineering and project management services.

In turn, the total investment that YPF and its partners will have to face for the full execution of the terminal will be approximately US$ 1.8 billion.

The works at Técnicas Reunidas will be carried out by engineers from the company's centres in Madrid, Argentina and Chile. The company has stated that the execution will require the dedication of almost one million hours of work.

"The Vaca Muerta contract is in line with the drive that Técnicas Reunidas is currently giving to its involvement in projects in which construction risk is minimised, in line with the "Salta" strategic plan that it presented last May," the Spanish company explained.

VMOS, a joint venture between YPF, Vista Energy Argentina, Pampa Energía and Pan American Sur, is the company responsible for developing the Vaca Muerta project and the infrastructure that is to begin commercial operations in July 2027.

This includes the construction of the crude oil export pipeline, with a length of 437 kilometers, and the loading and unloading terminal, with interconnected monobuoys and a tank and storage yard, which represents a total investment of US$ 3 billion.