Inside Vaca Muerta: a boomtown, millionaire wages and talent shortages

From 6 p.m. onward, the cold intensifies, and the wind throws you off balance as you walk. It is the same old wind that has blown across the Neuquén plateau for centuries, the one that for decades made Añelo just another town deep in Patagonia, with its small farms, goats, and seasonal grazing lands. Nothing in that scene foreshadowed the endless caravan of trucks loaded with sand, pipes, and equipment traveling along Provincial Route 7 toward the oilfields. Beneath the town lies the crown jewel of the Neuquén Basin: Vaca Muerta , the unconventional oil and gas formation that has become…