LatinNews Daily - 5 February 2025

*Argentina’s state-owned oil firm YPF has announced the sale of its Brazilian lubricant subsidiary YPF Brasil Comercio de Derivados de Petróleo to Brazilian firms GMZ Holding Ltda and IGP Holding Participações for a total of US$2.3m. Brazilian chemical company Usiquímica do Brasil acted as guarantor. As part of the sale, YPF has granted the buyers licence to produce and market products under the YPF brand in Brazil, subject to terms and conditions. In an official statement put out to markets, YPF characterised the completed sale of “the whole of its stake” in YPF Brasil as in line with its strategy to “focus business and growth on its operations in Vaca Muerta”, the site of its shale fields in the southwest of Argentina. Indeed, this sale arrives just under a year following YPF’s announcement in March 2024 of its Ar$3bn (US$3.5m) investment in the Vaca Muerta site to boost total ‘unconventional’ (i.e. shale) oil production as part of the firm’s four-year growth strategy. Dubbed the ‘4x4 Plan’, the strategy aims to transform YPF into a leading shale company and major exporter of hydrocarbons by 2030.