Argentina Turns to Texas for Shale Advice

November 2, 2015

Argentina Turns to Texas for Shale Advice

A delegation of high-ranking public officials, and oil and gas executives from Argentina visited The University of Texas at Austin twice in 2015 to discuss how to safely and sustainably develop the country’s energy resources.

The university’s Jackson School of Geosciences and the Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Business hosted the visits on June 3 and August 17.

Argentina holds the world’s second-largest technically recoverable shale gas reserves. But the experience of developing the reserves is new to the country, said Argentine Delegate Rodolfo Urtubey, national senator for Salta Province and member of the Energy Senate Committee.

“We’re here at The University of Texas at Austin because you have concentrated in this academic institution the different views — the legal views, the technical views, the financial views. We have to know the experiences,” Urtubey said.

At both meetings experts attended from the Jackson School, the School of Law, the Energy Institute and the McCombs School of Business. Representatives from the Rail­road Commission of Texas, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the private sector were also present.

University President Gregory L. Fenves visited the first delegation on his first day in office and emphasized the long and important history between the university and Latin America, and the university’s strength as a leading energy research institution.