South America’s Top 3 Fastest-Growing Oil Producers

September 16, 2025

• Brazil’s oil production growth is primarily driven by massive investments from Petrobras in prolific pre-salt offshore oilfields, aiming for 5 million barrels per day by 2030.
• Argentina has become a leading South American oil producer, with significant growth stemming from the successful exploitation of the vast Vaca Muerta shale formation.
• Guyana’s oil production is surging rapidly due to discoveries in the Stabroek Block, with ExxonMobil developing multiple projects that are expected to make Guyana a major global oil producer by the end of the decade.

Guyana’s swift appearance as the world’s newest petrostate, along with heightened tensions between Washington and Caracas, has brought the spotlight firmly back on South America’s oil industry.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently identified Brazil, Guyana and Argentina among the top five non-OPEC oil producers, which are driving global production growth.

All three South American nations are experiencing significant oil booms, placing them among the continent’s top producers. Brazil, Argentina and Guyana are all on track to emerge as global energy players that will be responsible for driving considerable production growth between now and the end of the decade.

1. Offshore oilfields drive Brazil’s production growth

Over the last decade, Brazil’s hydrocarbon output expanded at an immense rate. By June 2025, it was a whopping 60% greater than 10 years earlier, with Brazil lifting 4.9 million barrels of oil equivalent per day during that month. This hydrocarbon output was comprised of 3,755,759 barrels of crude oil and 1,142,038 barrels of natural gas. That sees Brazil not only ranked as South America’s largest oil producer but also the World’s seventh largest, behind OPEC member Iraq and ahead of another cartel participant, Kuwait. Brazil, which incidentally is also South America’s largest economy, is responsible for 4% of total global petroleum output.

There are signs of further robust growth ahead for Brazil’s economically vital hydrocarbon sector. Analysts forecast crude oil output from South America’s largest economy will reach 5 million barrels per day by 2030. This will be driven by substantial investment from Brazil’s national oil company Petrobras, which, according to the industry regulator, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), is responsible for just over 61% of the country’s total hydrocarbon output. 

Petrobras, for 2025 to 2029, allocated $77 billion for investment in exploration and production operations, of which $47 billion, or 6%, is destined for pre-salt assets. It is Brazil’s prolific pre-salt oilfields that are driving the country’s oil boom and are responsible for solid production growth. Petrobras’ massive upstream investment will fund the drilling of 51 new offshore exploration and appraisal wells between 2025 and 2029. Brazil’s state-controlled oil company also plans to place 10 floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels, with seven of those facilities destined for the company’s prolific pre-salt oilfields. 

This planned development will lift Petrobras’ production from 2.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day for 2025 to 3.2 million barrels of oil equivalent by 2029, with 81% of that hydrocarbon output coming from pre-salt oilfields.

Impressively, Petrobras’ upstream portfolio has a low breakeven price of $28 per barrel Brent, making it profitable even in low price environments. This makes the national oil company’s operations resilient to the poor outlook for oil, bolstering its ability to keep investing in upstream operations to boost production even if prices fall further.

2. Shale oil production is a boon for Argentina

In a surprise development, one of the world’s most crisis-prone economies, Argentina, recently emerged as a leading South American oil producer. The successful exploitation of the vast 8.6-million-acre (3.5 million hectare) Vaca Muerta shale formation significantly boosted Argentina’s oil and natural gas output.

As a result, Argentina’s hydrocarbon output over the last two years has regularly hit new record highs, seeing the country overtake Colombia to become South America’s third-largest oil producer.

During July 2025, Argentina lifted an average of 804,667 barrels of crude oil and 5.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, representing impressive year-over-year growth of 19% and 6% respectively. These production records firmly cement Argentina’s place as South America’s third-largest oil producer behind Brazil and Venezuela. Soaring shale oil and gas production, which makes up nearly two-thirds of hydrocarbon production, is responsible for that impressive growth. July 2025 shale oil output surged by 31% year over year to hit an all-time high of 513,074 barrels, while shale gas output rose 5%  to a record 3.3 billion cubic feet per day,

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There is strong projected production growth ahead as national oil company YPF ramps up investment in the Vaca Muerta. Argentina’s national oil company is the shale play’s largest landholder, controlling 2.9 million gross acres. Shale oil and gas comprise 78% of YPF’s proven reserves of 1.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent and 58% of the company’s production. YPF intends to invest $35.7 billion between 2025 and 2030, with $26.5 billion allocated for upstream operations. This will boost the company’s net hydrocarbon production to one million barrels daily by 2030, comprised of 820,000 barrels of oil, 1.095 million barrels of natural gas and 170,000 barrels of natural gas liquids.

The Vaca Muerta is attracting considerable interest from Big Oil and smaller energy companies, all seeking to profit from the shale play’s low breakeven costs and high-quality light sweet crude oil. Indeed, there is significant investment in building out urgently needed transportation and storage infrastructure in the Vaca Muerta, which will further boost production. It is for these reasons that analysts forecast Argentina will pump at least one million barrels of crude oil per day by 2030, or possibly more, with some estimates exceeding 1.2 million barrels per day.

3. Production soars in Guyana, the newest petro-state

Oil production in the tiny former British colony of Guyana is surging to record highs. In a mere four years, Exxon took its first world-class discovery, Liza-1, in the 6.6 million-acre Stabroek Block to production with the Liza Destiny FPSO coming online in 2019. That is startlingly quick in an industry where it can take a decade or more to develop major oil discoveries to bring them to production. Since then, Exxon has made over 30 discoveries in the Stabroek Block, which the supermajor estimates contain around 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources.

By July 2025, Guyana was lifting over 670,000 barrels of crude oil per day, making it South America’s fifth-largest oil producer behind Colombia. Output will keep growing as new facilities come online in the Stabroek Block.

During early August 2025, the One Guyana FPSO commenced operating at the Yellowtail discovery. This vessel has a nameplate capacity of 250,000 barrels per day. On reaching full production, expected by year’s end, the FPSO will boost Guyana’s output to 900,000 barrels of oil per day. As a result, the country of less than one million will overtake Colombia and Argentina to become South America’s third-largest oil producer.

Guyana is now a major global oil producer and exporter, which will experience further production growth with Exxon developing four additional energy projects. Three of the developments, Uaru, Whiptail and Hammerhead, are expected to commence operation by the end of the decade, lifting Guyana’s petroleum output to around 1.7 million barrels daily by 2030.

It is anticipated that the proposed Longtail development will come online during 2030, adding up to 1.5 billion cubic feet and 290,000 barrels of condensate daily to Guyana’s hydrocarbon output.

Guyana could be lifting around 2.2 million barrels of oil equivalent daily by the end of 2030, ranking the country as the world’s eleventh-largest hydrocarbon producer.

Oilprice.com