Southern Chile’s green hydrogen development has exposed the challenges in harmonising new energy sources with local communities and fauna.

Chile’s green hydrogen plans and renewable energy potential position it as a significant exporter of the fuel to markets including Europe.

By the end of 2023, state-run YPF plans to drill one or two horizontal wells in the new shale play Palermo Aike, targeting 6.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources.

Deepening political and social unrest in Peru, a major LNG exporter, are deepening delays to the country’s energy transition.

Chile needs to accelerate legal, regulatory and marketing groundwork for green hydrogen if it hopes to meet ambitious production and export targets, executives in the fledgling industry say.

New research shows a strong link between fracking and seismic activity in Vaca Muerta, but Argentine authorities ignore the problem.

Hydrogen is a strategic pillar in the energy transition plans of state-controlled Ecopetrol in Colombia and now the firm is exploring the potential of the “white” variety.

The oil and gas industry in Colombia is on tenterhooks as the government decides whether to allow new exploration contracts or not, as it moves away from fossil fuels.

Brazil’s president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wants to reassert some form of state control over motor fuel prices and steer state-run Petrobras back into refining, but analysts say he will have limited political and economic scope for major near-term fossil fuels policy changes.

Uruguay is the latest South American country to unveil a green hydrogen roadmap, but unlike some other aspiring producers and exporters of the emerging resource, the government has not yet relinquished plans to drill for oil and gas.

US investment giant EIG has acquired new assets in Chile including the crown jewel of Cerro Dominador, a solar complex comprising 110 MW of CSP and 100 MW of PV capacity, in the Atacama desert.

With both candidates opposed to fracking, the future of Colombia’s pilot unconventional exploration projects Kalé and Platero, is uncertain.