Editor’s Note
This article examines how Entre Ríos province has achieved over 80% market share in supplying silica sand to Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale play. It highlights that while quality is a factor, this dominance is largely underpinned by a regulatory framework that keeps costs exceptionally low.
In recent years, the province of Entre Ríos has established itself as the main supplier of silica sand for the fracking industry in Vaca Muerta. Its share now exceeds 80% of the input used by operators like YPF. Despite its superior quality, Entre Ríos sand dominates the market not only due to its geological properties but also because of its low costs, sustained within a framework of minimal environmental, fiscal, and labor regulation. This combination, far from constituting a legitimate structural advantage, not only affects revenue from the resource and environmental impact but also pushes traditional suppliers in Patagonia to the brink of collapse. The Superior Court of Justice of Entre Ríos ordered the provincial government to provide precise information on extracted volumes, the mineral’s destinations, and the amounts collected as extraction royalties. This information is still pending.
One of the most visible cases is that of NRG Argentina, based in Allen, Río Negro. From late 2024 to July 2025, the company laid off more than 640 workers. According to the AOMA union, this wave of layoffs is a direct response to the plummeting demand from major oil operators, who opted for Entre Ríos sand despite its higher transportation costs. In 2024, NRG processed only 600,000 tons of sand, far below the estimated minimum of 1.5 million needed to sustain its operation. Today, of the 800 workers it once employed, only 90 remain active.
The reasons for this displacement are not solely explained by the mineral’s technical quality.
Even adding transportation — over 1,300 kilometers to the Neuquén wells — the final price of Entre Ríos sand hovers around 80/100 dollars, making it more competitive at the expense of informality, environmental degradation, and labor precarity.
This “cheap sand” model in Entre Ríos is not harmless. Following an information request from the CAUCE foundation that was not only unanswered but appealed by the Province, in June 2025, the Superior Court of Justice of Entre Ríos ordered the provincial government to provide, within ten business days, precise information on extracted volumes, the mineral’s destinations, and the amounts collected as extraction royalties. The ruling mandated transparency in the exploitation of a strategic resource. However, to date, the ruling remains unfulfilled. No official data has been published, nor are there public records available on the portals of ATER (Entre Ríos Tax Administration), which is responsible for collecting revenue from resource extraction, or the Provincial General Directorate of Mining, as the enforcement authority responsible for setting values according to Law 10158.
Meanwhile, extractive pressure on the Ibicuy and Diamante deposits is increasing. Between 500 and 600 million liters of water are used monthly to wash sand — equivalent to the consumption of a city of 150,000 inhabitants — generating wastewater that threatens aquifers and river courses. Soil removal in wetland areas, silica dust emissions into the air, and the impact on natural habitats are generating growing social resistance in local communities.
In Entre Ríos, the lack of controls also translates into irregular labor conditions, with reports of informal work, exhausting shifts for drivers transporting sand continuously, and no territorial development strategy to reinvest part of the profits in impacted communities.
While major operators save millions, the real costs of this model are borne by laid-off workers, destroyed roads, degraded wetlands, and communities without information or participation.
