Javier Milei came to power in 2023 promising to drastically reform Argentina’s policies and regulations. Since then, the country has arguably become one of the world’s most radical experiments in deregulation.
A key part of this process has been a profound transformation in the way natural resources are managed.
Amid growing global demand for copper, lithium and liquefied natural gas, Argentina is seeking to position itself as a leading supplier.
During the 2003-2015 global commodities boom, so-called “natural resource nationalism” promised industrialisation and economic sovereignty by placing the state at the centre of trade in minerals and hydrocarbons. Several Latin American governments, including Argentina’s, sought to capture more rents through instruments such as taxes, royalties and regulations on private investment.
Milei reverses this logic almost like a pendulum.
Now the private sector occupies a privileged position. The state, meanwhile, reduces its capacity for revenue collection and control whilst offering greater legal guarantees for investment, including the possibility of litigating before international courts.
A central element of this is the Incentive Regime for Large Investments (RIGI), approved in 2024 and recently extended by decree until 2027. It offers large investors fiscal stability, free access to foreign currency and low taxes for up to 30 years, and does not require specific concessions regarding employment, the energy transition or climate action.
The scheme strengthens companies’ position against civil society by declaring participating projects to be of “national interest” and limiting the ability of social actors to introduce environmental regulations, such as water safeguards or bans on certain chemicals.
Milei no longer promises economic redistribution or a national industry based on resource wealth; the market will be responsible for the trickle-down effect. “RIGI Land”, as an official from the state-owned oil company YPF recently dubbed the country’s development zones, sums up this new phase of deregulation.
Territorial disputes, water stress issues and complaints about consultation – which have characterised the last extractive cycle – are now relegated to the background.
The numbers
In the absence of systematic public information on RIGI projects, the RIGI Observatory was established in 2025 to gather and request information from the state, with the aim of strengthening transparency and accountability.
According to our database, between 2024 and 2026, 36 projects were submitted to the scheme with a total value of USD 106 billion, of which 20 are in the mining and 10 in the hydrocarbons sectors. The concentration is even greater when analysing the volume of committed investment: over 98% of the funds are allocated to these activities, with 53% associated with hydrocarbons and 45% with mining.
When breaking down investments by subsector, oil leads the projected figures with 32% of the total, followed by copper mining (30%). In third place is liquefied natural gas (21%), whilst lithium accounts for 14% of announced investments. These figures demonstrate the extent to which the RIGI is closely linked to the expansion of extractive industries and the growing global demand for energy and critical minerals.
Projects have been concentrated in the Cuyo region and the northern Andes, where lithium and copper projects are expanding, and in oil and liquefied natural gas in Patagonia.
Of the 20 mining projects that applied to join the programme, most are linked to minerals which are strategic for the energy transition: 11 lithium projects, five copper projects, two gold projects, one silver project and one for the sand used in fracking for oil and gas.
Although lithium projects are the most numerous, copper represents the largest investments by value and is considered a government priority due to its export potential.
The main copper projects seeking to join the RIGI, in San Juan, Catamarca and Mendoza, are in highly ecologically sensitive, mountainous regions, criss-crossed by glaciers and periglacial environments. The impacts on water resources may extend beyond the extraction areas and affect downstream regions, raising concerns about the availability and quality of water for communities and economic activities located outside the project areas.
The National Glacier Law, passed in 2010 following socio-environmental protests, limited the expansion of such projects by protecting ecosystems considered strategic water reserves.
Milei’s reforms relax some of these restrictions, granting provinces greater powers to determine which areas have significant water functions and which do not. Environmentalists and researchers warn that this marks the start of a race to approve mining projects.
In Patagonia, the plan is driving a new cycle of oil and gas expansion. Pipelines, ports and liquefaction plants connect Vaca Muerta, one of the world’s largest shale gas fields, with the Atlantic coast, a region that attracts tourists and whale watchers to its protected areas.
Short-term benefits?
The RIGI consolidates a new cycle of accelerated expansion aimed at attracting investment and generating foreign exchange in the short term.
It is a model based on deregulation and environmental flexibility that is beginning to be replicated by other right-wing governments in the region, such as in Bolivia and Chile.
The RIGI’s promise of financial stability is quite clear for large extractive companies operating in a historically unstable economy such as Argentina’s.
The promise to communities, however, is far less clear. Will they benefit through direct employment? Will their water sources and their rights to consultation be protected? Who decides how natural resources are managed?
These questions take on particular relevance because many of the projects promoted by the regime are being developed in territories affected by long-standing socio-environmental conflicts.
Far from being established in empty spaces, these investments encroach upon river basins, regional economies and territories inhabited by Indigenous communities and local populations who demand to participate in decisions affecting their future.
The case of the Salar del Hombre Muerto, where four lithium projects linked to the RIGI are concentrated, illustrates these tensions. Local communities and organisations have been warning about the potential cumulative impacts of the activity on water and high-Andean ecosystems.
Having become a pilot for the deregulation of the extractive sector, Argentina is putting to the test a model that appears to be geared more towards global markets than towards the needs of its own population.
“RIGI Land” promises stability and profitability to major investors, but it still leaves a much more fundamental question unanswered: what will remain once the mining companies have left?
