en.Wedoany.com Reported - On July 17, the board of Argentina's Pampa Energía approved a $2.7 billion investment decision to build a granular urea production project in Bahía Blanca, southern Buenos Aires Province. The urea project will be developed by Pampa's wholly-owned subsidiary Fértil Pampa, located within the Bahía Blanca industrial complex, covering approximately 80 hectares, with a planned annual production capacity of 2.1 million tons of granular urea.

The urea project includes the construction of an ammonia plant, two granular urea production lines, a seawater desalination facility, storage silos, and related logistics infrastructure at the Bahía Blanca port. The two urea production lines will have a combined daily capacity of approximately 6,000 tons, and the port supporting facilities will enable truck loading and ship export operations. The project will leverage the Vaca Muerta natural gas pipeline system, local port, Pampa's own thermal power plant and wind power assets, forming an integrated chemical industry chain linking raw materials, electricity, production, and export.

Pampa stated that natural gas and electricity are the main cost sources in urea production, and both inputs will be primarily supplied by the company's own systems. The project construction period is expected to be approximately 41 months, with construction undertaken by SACDE, engineering and procurement by Tecnimont, and process technology jointly provided by Stamicarbon (under Nextchem) and KBR. The project is expected to create over 3,500 direct jobs during peak construction and approximately 300 long-term positions after operation. Once completed, the urea project will serve Argentina's domestic agricultural needs and target exports to regional markets such as Brazil.