Marín highlighted that YPF already has a size equivalent to half of Ford and assured that the company is on track to become one of the 20 largest oil companies in the world
North Hub: Joint operations in the Bajo del Toro area.
South Hub: An exclusive project of YPF that has already been presented under the benefits of the Incentive Regime for Large Investments (RIGI), with a planned investment of USD 25 billion.
In the context of the IAE Summit 2026, organized by the IAE Business School, the president and CEO of YPF, Horacio Marín, presented an ambitious roadmap that marks the end of corporate mediocrity. With a bold vision, the executive stated that the company already surpasses giants like Halliburton in magnitude and currently represents half of Ford in terms of industrial scale.
However, the horizon is even more promising: by the year 2030, YPF will rank among the 20 largest oil companies in the world, a milestone of real economic sovereignty achieved through efficiency and not through rhetoric.
This renaissance is supported by an unnegotiable “country objective”: to achieve energy exports of over USD 30 billion by the year 2031. According to Marín, this goal has managed to align all productive sectors, overcoming the historical divide that paralyzed development. To achieve this, the company is executing the strategic plan called “4x4”, designed to quadruple its value in just four years, leveraging the crown jewel: Vaca Muerta.
The structure of this growth is divided into four production pillars or strategic hubs:
Core Hub: Focused on the areas of Loma Campana and La Amarga Chica, the most consolidated assets of the firm.
GNL Hub: The most ambitious project, which has five concessions approved by the province of Neuquén aimed at the mass export of liquefied gas.
The Liquefied Natural Gas (GNL) project represents the most complex technical and financial challenge in the company's history. With an infrastructure investment of USD 24 billion, the construction of a 200-hectare plant —equivalent to 70% of the La Plata refinery— will become the largest project finance in Latin America. This mega project, which will be financially managed by the American bank JP Morgan starting in July 2026, will position Argentina as the fifth largest exporter of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
Territorially, the plan defines clear and efficient roles: Bahía Blanca will strengthen as a petrochemical hub with a processing capacity of 85 million cubic meters, while Punta Colorada will be the exporting bastion with an additional investment of USD 7 billion. In a tumultuous world, Marín emphasized that Argentina's geographical neutrality, far from conflicts in the Middle East, makes us a “safe country to provide energy to the world”.
Finally, this qualitative leap would not have been possible without the internal cultural transformation led by Marín, who eliminated defeatist concepts like "success" or "failure" to impose a single philosophy: that of “overcoming”. The CEO was emphatic in attributing this success to the arrival of a business-friendly government and the legal solidity of the RIGI, tools that allowed the opening of international markets that just 15 months ago were nonexistent for Argentina. “Today we are ready and I am sure that GNL will be a reality and will help change Argentina”, he concluded, reaffirming that the path of economic freedom is the only path to greatness.
