Laredo Oil, Inc. has announced that earlier in the month, Mark See, the Company's Chief Executive Officer, together with members of the Company's Argentina team, met at Casa de Santa Cruz in Buenos Aires with Claudio Vidal, Governor of the Province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, and Jaime Álvarez, the Province's Minister of Energy and Mining, to present the Company's proprietary Underground Gravity Drainage (UGD) technology and discuss its potential application to recover oil from the province's mature fields.
The meeting was the Company's second with Governor Vidal, following an initial meeting in August 2026, and builds on technical-level discussions held with the provincial Ministry of Energy and Mining. Santa Cruz is one of Argentina's principal conventional oil-producing provinces and forms part of the Golfo San Jorge Basin, where many fields are mature and in production decline. The Company's most recently announced non-binding letter of intent targets a development area in Santa Cruz, and definitive agreements for UGD projects in the province may require approvals at the provincial level. The Company therefore considers a constructive working relationship with the provincial government as an integral part of its Argentine program.
As reported by the Province in its official communication of 9 October 2026, the parties discussed investment opportunities and new technologies to recover oil from mature fields, increase production and generate local employment, and agreed to maintain an ongoing dialogue. Minister Álvarez stated that the Province is "recovering oil activity," and that the objective is not only to produce more oil but to recover jobs, create opportunities for local service companies and increase revenue for Santa Cruz. No agreement was entered into with the Province in connection with the meeting, and the meeting does not constitute a commitment by the Province or the Company.
"We value the working relationship we have built with Governor Vidal, Minister Álvarez and their teams, and the clarity of the Province's priorities: sustain conventional production, protect employment and bring in technology that can do both," said Mark See, Chief Executive Officer of Laredo Oil. "In a country where provincial governments hold the hydrocarbon resources, that relationship is a core asset for a project of this kind. Santa Cruz has exactly the reservoirs UGD was designed to address. The engineering and evaluation work ahead will determine what can be done and on what timeline, and we will keep the provincial authorities closely informed as it advances."
Argentina context
Argentina's oil sector is in a period of sustained growth. National crude production reached a record 887 227 bpd in May 2026, approximately 19% higher than a year earlier, according to data published by Argentina's Ministry of Economy, and in the 1H26 crude oil became the country's single largest export product, ahead of corn and soybean meal, according to INDEC trade data. Growth has been led by unconventional production in Neuquén, while the conventional basins that supply roughly 30% of national output, including the Golfo San Jorge Basin in Santa Cruz and Chubut, hold a large inventory of mature fields in natural decline. Technologies capable of recovering additional oil from those fields are, in the Company's view, directly aligned with the stated priorities of the national and provincial governments to sustain conventional production, employment and regional activity.
The commercial relationship between the United States and Argentina has also deepened. In February 2026 the two governments signed the United States–Argentina Agreement on Reciprocal Trade and Investment, under which Argentina committed to facilitate US investment in its territory and the U.S. Export-Import Bank and the US International Development Finance Corporation agreed to consider financing for US investment in critical sectors. As a US company deploying US developed technology, Laredo intends to evaluate the U.S. government-supported financing tools available for its Argentine projects alongside private capital.
The Company intends to continue to engage with provincial and national authorities, concession holders and other stakeholders in Argentina as it advances the technical and commercial evaluation of its announced opportunities.
