Argentina's YPF increased oil production 3.4% in 2013 from 2012 at blocks it operates in the country, helping the state-run energy company recover from a decade-long decline, it said Monday.
Natural gas production rose 2.2% over the same period at operated fields, based on data compiled by the Energy Secretariat, it said.
YPF, which came under state control in 2012, is ramping up investment to turn around a 6% annual decline in production over the past decade.
In December, the company increased oil production at operated blocks by 8.7% and that of gas by 11.4% compared with the year-earlier period.
YPF "reversed a trend of more than 10 years" in dwindling production in 2013, it said in a statement.
YPF is investing $37.2 billion from 2012 through 2017 to increase oil and gas production by 36%. The strategy involves ramping up drilling to squeeze more out of conventional reservoirs and put into production the country's shale resources, estimated at among the world's largest for oil and gas.
The company did not provide raw data for the latest periods. According to the Argentine Oil and Gas Institute, an industry group, YPF produces a third of Argentina's 540,000 b/d of oil production and a quarter of its 114 million cubic meters/d of gas.
