[7] When he finished primary school, young Mosconi entered the Military College of the Nation on 26 May 1891, and graduated from it as an infantry sub-lieutenant on 20 November 1894, at 17 years of age.

[8] In 1899 he performed topographical and statistical surveys of the Andes in the province of Mendoza, and the next year he took part in the studies in Patagonia to establish a strategically important railroad system in Neuquén.

His doctoral thesis dealt with a project to dam the Nahuel Huapi Lake and installing a valve to regulate the flow of the Limay River and the Río Negro, in Neuquén, in order to make them navigable.

Between 1906 and 1908 he was part of commission of Argentine graduate students sent to Europe (Italy, Belgium and Germany) to study and acquire hydroelectric and gas power plants.

[10] YPF received an initial grant of 8 million Argentine pesos by the national government, and from then on became self-sufficient, financing itself with the profits of extraction and, of course, without foreign investment or loans.

Between 1927 and 1928 Mosconi toured Latin America telling and teaching the authorities about the Argentine experience with regards to fossil fuels, campaigning for an integration of efforts in the matter of petroleum as a resource.

In 1929 Mosconi received Edmundo Castillo, Uruguay's Minister of Industry, and counseled him about the establishment of a national refinery and a state corporation to sell its products.

This led to the creation of ANCAP (Administración Nacional de Combustibles, Alcohol y Portland), the state energy corporation created by the Uruguayan government in 1931.

Though Mosconi's ideas about energy independence did not survive long, YPF stood as Argentina's state oil company until 1999, when it was privatized by order of President Carlos Menem.

This town became known in the Argentine national stage in 2001 due to a serious conflict between the government and groups of piqueteros, workers left unemployed in part by the downsizing of oil exploitation in the area after the privatization of YPF.