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Vista is Argentina's No. 2 shale producer behind YPF

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Oil output seen hitting 150,000 barrels daily by 2030

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Company sees lower lifting costs near technical limit

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Vaca Muerta output gains dependent on more fracking

By Eliana Raszewski

BUENOS AIRES, Sept 4 (Reuters) - In a push to unlock

more of the oil riches buried in a massive shale deposit in

Argentina, Vista Energy will invest about $1.1 billion this year

as it also aims to cut costs there by double digits, the firm's

chief executive told Reuters.

Miguel Galuccio, Vista Energy's founder and CEO, offered the

near-term development plan for the Vaca Muerta shale formation

in a Zoom interview from New York, where he was

celebrating the company's five-year anniversary on the New York

Stock Exchange.

Shares have surged more than 460% since the company's

initial public offering.

The company also trades on the main stock index in Mexico

, where it operates an onshore field.

But Vaca Muerta, the world's largest shale project in

development outside the United States, is by far the company's

top project. It is also the Argentine government's main hope for

reversing a longstanding energy deficit that has forced it to

finance costly imports over decades.

Galuccio noted how the project has taken off in just over a

decade.

"In 2012, Vaca Muerta was for believers. Today Vaca Muerta

is for engineers," he said, touting expected production gains.

Since last year, output from the deposit has more than

doubled to reach 65,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day

(boepd) in this year's second quarter.

The breakneck growth will likely continue as output in the

fourth quarter is seen hitting 85,000 boepd, on its way to

reaching 100,000 boepd in 2026 and 150,000 boepd by the end of

the decade, said Galuccio.

To prime the expansion, Vista will invest in more wells and

related transport infrastructure in the area, located in

Argentina's western Neuquen province, where it already has 1,150

new well locations identified across more than 200,000 acres,

according to company data.

The former chief executive of state-owned oil producer YPF,

Galuccio said Vista added its third drilling rig to its Vaca

Muerta operations earlier this year and will bring on a second

fracking crew in the fourth quarter.

Fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, is a common

industry practice that allows oil and gas to flow out from dense

shale rock.

The technique requires blasting sand, toxic chemicals and

large quantities of water into wells, which environmentalists

criticize as harmful to aquifers and likely linked to a rise in

earthquakes.

While Vaca Muerta's lifting costs settled at $4.50 per

barrel in the second quarter, the executive sees the extraction

costs dipping around 11% to $4 by 2026.

He described the expected cost at near the technical limit,

from about $18 per barrel when production began.

Galuccio flagged that insufficient pipeline capacity was the

local industry's biggest bottleneck last year, but pointed to

plans to address that by doubling capacity on midstream operator

Oldelval's pipeline network, as well as separate expansions on

the Vaca Muerta Sur and Norte pipelines.

He also stressed that Argentina could use more help

developing the massive shale formation, which is about the size

of Belgium.

"Vaca Muerta needs more Vistas and more investment," he

said.

(Reporting by Eliana Raszewski; Writing by David Alire Garcia;

Editing by Lincoln Feast.)