Río Negro: From Resources to Energy and Productive Leadership

Río Negro is undergoing a transformation in productive capacity of such magnitude that just a few years ago seemed difficult to imagine.

Energy, hydrocarbons, and mining have transitioned from being merely sectors with potential to becoming concrete engines of investment, employment, infrastructure, and new opportunities for the entire province.

We didn't arrive here by chance. Our strategic location facing the Vaca Muerta formation, which also lies within our territory, opened an extraordinary opportunity. We knew that having resources nearby wasn't enough. We had to create conditions for those investments to come to Río Negro.

So they would find predictability, legal certainty, infrastructure, institutional capacity, and long-term vision. This was one of the major objectives set by our governor Alberto Weretilneck. To transform that geographic advantage into a true productive advantage.

Today, that process is becoming clearly visible. Oil from Vaca Muerta will have in the Río Negro coast one of its main platforms for reaching global markets. The development of infrastructure linked to hydrocarbon exports is changing the energy scale of the province and positioning Río Negro within the strategic map of Argentina and all of Latin America.

At the same time, Liquefied Natural Gas opens an even greater dimension. The possibility of transforming gas and exporting it from our coasts means much more than a new economic activity.

It implies ports, infrastructure, logistics, services, suppliers, training, technology, and employment. It's a development chain that can profoundly transform the Atlantic Region and generate opportunities for companies and workers throughout the province. That's why we always say energy cannot be only an export activity.

The true challenge is ensuring that an increasing share of the value generated remains in Río Negro. That is our direction.

This means strengthening our suppliers, preparing our SMEs to compete, training workers, and creating tools so that residents of Río Negro can participate in new productive chains.

Investments make sense when development is generated around them.

Mining represents another fundamental part of this transformation.

Calcatreu marks a before and after for mining activity in Río Negro. After many years, Río Negro returned to producing gold and silver and began to demonstrate that it's possible to develop modern mining with investment, environmental controls, community participation, and local job creation. But Calcatreu is much more than a project. It's a signal.

It demonstrates that the Southern Region can also become a territory of new investments and opportunities. A region that for decades was far from major productive circuits is now beginning to occupy a different place within provincial development. There's a different atmosphere.

Energy, oil, gas, and mining are part of the same process. We're not talking about isolated projects. We're talking about a new productive architecture for Río Negro.

And that transformation requires something that often goes unseen behind major investments: a State that plans.

The State must establish clear rules, safeguard resources, oversee projects, protect the environment, and simultaneously build the conditions for investment to develop.

A challenge of that scale. But it also must do something more: ensure that this growth reaches society.

That's why we work so that Río Negro companies have opportunities within supplier chains, so that local employment has priority, and so that technical training meets new productive demands. The energy transformation is not measured only in kilometers of pipelines, export terminals, or production volumes.

It is also measured in workers who find new opportunities, in companies that can grow, in young people who are trained, and in localities that receive infrastructure as a result.

That is the true challenge of development.

Río Negro has a historic opportunity today. Because of its territory, its resources, its location, and its capacity to connect Vaca Muerta production with the Atlantic, the province is beginning to occupy a central place in Argentina's new energy matrix.

Historic opportunities also demand historic decisions.

During these years, Governor Alberto Weretilneck's leadership enabled us to sustain a clear strategy: defend Río Negro's interests, generate predictability, attract investments, and build a working relationship between the public and private sectors.

That course explains much of what we are experiencing today. The province is moving forward because there was planning before investments arrived. Now a second phase begins based on the need to convert those investments into structural development. This means more infrastructure, more training, more knowledge, more suppliers, more employment, and more opportunities distributed throughout the territory.

It also means thinking beyond each individual project.

Oil, gas, and mining are tools to build a more integrated province, more competitive and with greater capacity to decide its own future. Río Negro has the potential to become one of Argentina's major energy and productive engines.

We have resources, we have location, and we have projects. But, above all, we have something fundamental: a vision of where we want to go.

The challenge now is to maintain that course and ensure that every investment that comes to our province leaves capabilities, opportunities, and development for future generations.

Because the true value of our resources is not only underground or off our coasts. It lies in what we are capable of building with them.