(FT, Jude Webber, 9.Oct.2018) — Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex said it had discovered two new shallow water fields that, combined with other discoveries in recent years, would add production of as much as 210,000 barrels of oil per day and 350m cubic feet of gas.
The Manik-101 A and Mulach-1 fields, in shallow waters of the south of the Gulf of Mexico, could contain so called possible, probable and proven reserves of 180m barrels of oil equivalent and are located near existing infrastructure. The discoveries included light and super light oil, which is the most used by Mexico’s refineries.
Carlos Treviño, Pemex chief executive, said the discoveries represented a “good platform” for the incoming government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which takes office on December 1. Mexico’s oil production has been in steady decline since 2004.
Pemex said Manik-101 A was expected to produce 10,000 to 15,000 bpd of oil, while Mulach-1 was expected to produce 20,000 to 30,000 bpd of oil.
Pemex also spelt out expected production at four previously discovered fields — Kinbe, Koban, Xikin and Esah-1.
Kinbe was expected to add 24,000 bpd of oil and 35m cubic feet a day of gas. Koban is expected to produce 46,000 bpd of oil and 219m cubic feet per day of gas. Xikin should add 70,000 bpd of oil and 91m cubic feet of gas. Esah-1 will produce 23,000 bpd of oil and 9m cubic feet of gas a day.
Esah-1 is expected to begin production next year and Xikin in the first quarter 2020.
Total investment in the six fields was expected to be $7bn to $10bn, said José Antonio Escalera, Pemex’s exploration director.
Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, energy secretary, said the new discoveries were among the 10 most important in shallow waters in the last 15 years and said they meant Pemex would be close to reversing the downward trend of oil reserves in the next two years.
The announcement will be music to the ears of the president-elect, who wants to boost production by at least 600,000 barrels per day by the end of his six-year term, including some 280,000 from the private sector.
Pemex’s production sank to 1.816m barrels of oil per day in August and this year’s goal had been 1.951m, but Mr Treviño told an oil congress last month that the output this year would be “significantly” under target and Pemex would need to import 100,000 barrels of light crude a day in October to meet refining needs. He declined to give a new output goal for 2018.
Mr López Obrador has softened his former opposition to a landmark energy reform four years ago that opened Mexico’s energy sector to private investment but nonetheless seized on that as proof that the reform was failing to deliver as expected.
Mr López Obrador has announced a sweeping “rescue” plan for the sector, including a $4bn capital injection for Pemex and construction of a new refinery and improvements to Pemex’s existing six refineries. He has yet to spell out how he intends to pay for the projects but Arturo Herrera, incoming deputy finance minister, told the FT Pemex’s debt would not be increased.
The incoming government has said it will auction service contracts to drill existing Pemex assets but has not yet said whether the next scheduled oil tenders, due on February 14, will go ahead. However, those tenders include shale assets and Mr López Obrador insisted at the weekend that there would be no fracking — the horizontal drilling technique used to extract so-called unconventional resources contained in rock formations — anywhere in Mexico during his term, suggesting that at least the shale auctions would be scrapped.
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