The State Department's fact sheet launching the Andes-Atlantic Corridor on 23 September 2026, the first Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) corridor in the Western Hemisphere, carries two US dollar figures for one financier, and they are different objects. The U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM), the U.S. government's official export credit agency, signed a U.S.-Argentina Build the Future Framework with the Government of Argentina "to mobilize financing of up to $7 billion through 2027," in EXIM's words (the fact sheet says "by 2027"). That is an announced ceiling on what the bank may do across priority sectors. It is not a commitment to any named project and not deployed capital.
The second figure is narrower and weaker. The fact sheet says EXIM "has issued a non-binding indicative term sheet up to US$6 billion" for Argentina LNG, the US$51 billion integrated project in Vaca Muerta that YPF is leading with Eni and XRG, which the sheet calls an Emirati energy company. The proposed financing would support procurement of U.S. goods and services, including the contract awarded to McDermott for a gas-treatment and natural gas liquids fractionation facility. A Pumpco-led consortium, Pumpco being a MasTec subsidiary working with Bonatti and Contreras Hnos., has been awarded an export-pipeline contract worth more than US$1 billion, subject to final investment decision. The US$6 billion is an indicative, uncommitted offer; the US$51 billion is the project's own estimated cost.
Set the three documents of the day side by side and the instruments separate further. EXIM's release announces the framework and names its sectors, but says nothing of Argentina LNG or a term sheet. YPF's release calls the US$6 billion a proposal and says any grant remains subject to the final approval of EXIM's Board, without using the word "non-binding." Only the State Department's sheet carries that phrase, and it places the two figures in neighboring passages without saying the smaller sits inside the larger.
Others have read it as nested. Shale24 (29 September) puts the term sheet at about 86 percent of the framework; The Rio Times (27 September) and AgendAR (2 October) likewise treat the US$6 billion as part of the US$7 billion. Noah Intelligence (25 September) argues the opposite, that the framework does not reserve US$7 billion for Argentina LNG. The ceiling-versus-paper distinction is therefore not new; the documents show that the nesting is an inference, and the two figures should not be summed or subtracted.
The sovereign thread runs through EXIM alone: this is U.S. government export credit, tied to U.S. content, offered to a project whose sponsors are not American. The fact sheet adds that Washington intends to advance corridor transactions "excluding non-market actors," a term it does not define and does not apply to this project's sponsors.
The dollar figure is the headline; the American contractors named beside it are the instrument. Until EXIM's Board votes, the term sheet commits no capital, and the framework commits none either.
Primary source(s): U.S. Department of State fact sheet, United States and Argentina Launch Andes-Atlantic Corridor (23 September 2026); Export-Import Bank of the United States release (23 September 2026); YPF press release (23 September 2026); Noah Intelligence (25 September 2026); The Rio Times (27 September 2026); Shale24 (29 September 2026); AgendAR (2 October 2026)