Global competition for upstream investment: key test for Latin America’s policymakers

In the last five years, Latin America has re-emerged on the world stage of global upstream opportunities. Brazil has proved up its massive pre-salt trend boasting tens of billions of barrels of potential. Argentina, seen as a mature producer well past its prime only a few years ago, has a new lease of life in its world-class Vaca Muerta shale province. In August, Mexico completed far-reaching energy reform; many in the industry had long hoped for this, but it had seemed politically unthinkable even after President Enrique Pena Nieto had submitted his proposal to the legislature a year earlier.