
Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell made a stride forward in its push for part of Argentina’s nascent shale oil pie after the Neuquen province government gave it the rights to exploit two unconventional oil areas in the much-coveted Vaca Muerta region for the next 35 years.

Argentina's state-managed energy firm YPF posted a second quarter net income of 2.297 billion pesos ($252.8 million) on Wednesday, a 50.5% increase on the same period last year. YPF earnings have been cushioned from the collapse of international oil prices by a government-controlled price for oil produced in the country, which sits at about $78 dollars per barrel.

Argentina's government managed energy company YPF said on Sunday that it turned up a new promising shale gas deposit in its giant Vaca Muerta field in the south of the country.The find, in the Patagonian province of Neuquen, suggests there is likely much more gas in the vast but barely tapped Vaca Muerta field, YPF said.

Argentine energy company YPF CEO Miguel Galuccio is scheduled to sign on Wednesday in Moscow a contract on joint exploitation of shale oil and gas in the rich Vaca Muerta fields of Patagonian province Neuquén. The contract is part of the bilateral agenda to be addressed by visiting Argentine president Cristina Fernandez on Thursday, when she meets with Vladimir Putin.

Argentine state-controlled energy company YPF said it signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday with China's Sinopec pertaining to the eventual development of conventional and non-conventional oil and gas projects in Patagonia.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that Argentina's economy will contract by 1.3% in 2015, a figure smaller than original estimates, as the organization revised its world projections to reflect tumbling oil prices.

YPF's oil and natural gas production rose in 2014 for the second year running, Argentina's state-run energy company said on Thursday. Oil production rose 8.7% last year, while gas output was up 12.5%, YPF said, although the company did not publish annual output volume.

YPF SA and Petroliam Nasional Bhd, state-controlled companies from Argentina and Malaysia, signed a 550 million dollars deal to drill fields at the world’s fourth-largest shale oil deposit in Patagonia’s Vaca Muerta, south Argentina.

The slump in global oil prices will reduce Argentina's energy import bill by several billion dollars, a development that could ease pressure on the Central Bank’s strained foreign-currency reserves, according to Economy minister Axel Kicillof.

The elected government of the Falkland Islands has strongly refuted remarks by Argentine official 'Malvinas Secretary' Daniel Filmus, published in The Guardian, in which he states that hydrocarbons activities in the Falklands are environmentally reckless, and describes Filmus words as “yet another example of the Argentine's government futile efforts to damage the Falklands economy”