[►] With contributions from companies, they will finance the network that will bring industrial water to Vaca Muerta

Audio Rubén Etcheverry, Minister of Infrastructure

The Province plans to execute the Red Azul project and finance it with the income that will be represented by the operators’ future consumption contracts. The work will require an estimated investment of 100 million dollars.

The Province will build the aqueduct project called Red Azul, which will allow industrial water to be transported to stimulate oil wells in Vaca Muerta and the entire central area of ​​Neuquén. “We need companies to commit to a supply contract for the purchase of industrial water for use in future years and with that to be able to finance this work,” explained the Minister of Infrastructure, Rubén Etcheverry.

He stressed that the project “is vital to reduce the water impact and also the carbon footprint, lower costs and improve safety.” He indicated that in a later stage they will seek to “convert a kind of Blue Network to Green, with an irrigation network at the ends of the aqueducts that we are going to design.”

The minister indicated that this is “a project that we had proposed about twelve years ago and today we resumed” and specified that the state company Emhidro “will have the specific and fundamental function of continuing with this work.”

Etcheverry estimated that the investment is around $100 million and said that it is expected to have this new infrastructure at the beginning of next year. He reported that the pre-project has already been completed and that it must now be adjusted with the new volumes and flows that companies need. “This will complete the design and valuation,” he added.