Paraná-Uruguayana Gas Pipeline

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Paraná-Uruguayana Gas Pipeline, known in Argentina as Gasoducto Paraná-Uruguayana and in Brazil as Gasoduto Paraná-Uruguaiana, is an operating natural gas pipeline.

Location

The pipeline runs from Aldea Brasilera, Argentina (just south of Paraná in the province of Entre Ríos) to Uruguaiana, Brazil.

The pipeline's route runs parallel to Argentina's national route 127, then crosses the international border via a subterranean channel beneath the Río Uruguay 15 km south of Paso de los Libres. In Brazil, the pipeline feeds into a 25km section of the partially constructed Uruguaiana-Porto Alegre Gas Pipeline to deliver gas to the Uruguaiana power station.

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Project Details

• Operator: Transportadora de Gas del Mercosur SA (TGM)
• Owner: Transportadora de Gas del Mercosur SA (TGM)
• Parent Company: TotalEnergies (32.7%), Tecpetrol (31.5%), Central Puerto S.A. (20%), CGC-Compañia General de Combustibles (15.8%)
• Capacity: 5.48 bcm/y (15 MMm³/d)
• Length: 421 km
• Diameter: 24 inches
• Status: Operating
• Start Year: 2000
• Associated infrastructure:
  • Uruguaiana power station
  • Uruguaiana-Porto Alegre gas pipeline

Background

The project was developed by a consortium led by the Argentine company Techint. Construction started in 1999 and was completed within 15 months. The pipeline was inaugurated by presidents of Brazil and Argentina, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Fernando de la Rúa on 18 August 2000 at Paso de los Libres.

In 2008, Argentina's state oil company YPF suspended shipments of gas through the pipeline due to gas shortages in the domestic market, prompting a lawsuit that resulted in YPF paying a US $114 million settlement to project owner TGM in 2017. In December 2017 YPF and TGM signed a new carriage agreement requiring YPF to pay TGM a fee of US $1,857,143 per annum for use of the Paraná-Uruguyana pipeline from 2018 through 2024, regardless of actual gas transport volumes during the specified period.

In September 2021 Argentina's state-owned IEASA (Integración Energética Argentina) signed a contract with Brazil's Âmbar Energia to resume gas supplies to the Uruguaiana power station. The contract would rely on imported LNG regasified at Excelerate Energy's Escobar FSRU, then transported to Brazil via Argentina's existing pipeline network, including the Paraná-Uruguayana Gas Pipeline.

The mid-2023 completion of the first phase of Argentina's Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline prompted new interest in a long-standing proposal to export Argentine gas from Vaca Muerta into southern Brazil, incorporating the Paraná-Uruguayana pipeline as a key component of the cross-border gas transport system.

Technical description

The pipeline length, according to various sources, ranges from 421 km to 437 km.. It has a diameter of 610 mm (24 in) and a capacity of 5.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. The US$250 million pipeline supplies natural gas to the 640-MW Uruguaiana power station in Brazil. The pipeline exports gas to Brazil only when Argentina has sufficient supplies; during a six-year period between 2015 and 2021, gas exports to Brazil were completely shut down.

Construction of a planned 615 km (382 mi) extension from Uruguaiana to Porto Alegre began in 2002, but only 50 km (31 mi) had been built as of 2004. However, with the development of unconventional natural gas reserves at Vaca Muerta in Argentina's Neuquén province, Argentina and Brazil have recently expressed renewed interest in developing the Uruguaiana to Porto Alegre corridor as part of the proposed Vaca Muerta-Brazil Gas Pipeline.

Operator

The pipeline is operated by Transportadora de Gas del Mercosur, which is a joint venture of TotalEnergies, Tecpetrol, Central Puerto and CGC (Compañia General de Combustibles).

Articles and resources

External articles

Wikipedia also has an article on Paraná-Uruguayana Gas Pipeline (Paraná–Uruguaiana pipeline). This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License].