LatinNews Daily - 20 August 2026

*Argentine energy company Gas y Petróleo del Neuquén (GyP), which is owned by the Neuquén provincial government, has opened the process for other firms to submit bids for projects in 15 areas of the Vaca Muerta shale formation. According to media reports, Argentine and international energy companies submitted bids, including Continental Resources, which is chaired by US oil tycoon Harold Hamm. In a consortium with Phoenix Global Resources, a subsidiary of Switzerland-headquartered commodity trading company Mercuria, Continental has reportedly placed bids on six of the 15 Vaca Muerta fields on offer. Aside from Hamm, another US billionaire, Peter Thiel, co-founder of tech firms such as Paypal and Palantir, has also shown recent interest in Vaca Muerta. Last week the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a filing which showed that Thiel’s hedge fund, Thiel Macro LLC, had acquired around 1.19m shares, worth US$75.9m, of Argentine firm Vista Energy, which operates in Vaca Muerta. According to newswire Reuters, this equates to a 1% stake in Vista Energy.