|
Pemex to drill first deepwater well Under pressure to increase output, Pemex turns to major players Debra Beachy Petroleum News Contributing Writer
Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly Pemex will turn to foreign oil companies to drill its first deepwater well this year, Pemex Director General Raul Munoz said in early April.
Munoz made the announcement first in a speech to the Association of Mexican Petroleum Engineers April 4, and then repeated it in a speech April 5, marking the 100th anniversary of the first commercial oil field discovered in Mexico.
Munoz said Pemex planned to drill the deepwater well “in collaboration with foreign oil consortiums to benefit from their experience with deepwater drilling which Mexico doesn’t possess.” Munoz did not name the consortiums, but said Pemex is talking to the major players about deepwater drilling.
Pemex is under increasing pressure to come up with a replacement for the Cantarell field, discovered in the 1970s, which now provides Mexico with two-thirds of its crude production. Analysts say Cantarell could dry up in the next 10 to 20 years.
Cantarell, off the Yucatan Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico, is in relatively shallow water. The Constitution currently bans foreign ownership of Mexico’s oil wealth, and oil companies, analysts say, would not want to share deepwater technology without getting to share in production. Prospects include 172 deepwater drilling sites Out of 817 exploration sites identified by Pemex in the Gulf of Mexico, 172 are deepwater drilling sites, Munoz said.
Munoz told the engineers that Pemex wants to increase crude production to an average of 4 million barrels a day by 2006 from the average 3.4 million barrels a day produced in 2003. Pemex wants to increase natural gas production to 7 billion cubic feet per day, up from 4.5 billion cubic feet produced in 2003, he said.
Munoz said Pemex will spend a record $12 million on new exploration, which includes Ku-Maloob-Zaap, offshore light crude, the Bermúdez Complex, Lankahuasa and some multiple service contracts for gas exploration in the Burgos basin.
Munoz said Pemex also plans to pump investment into its aging petrochemical plants and focus on ethanol derivatives. Pemex has launched the first phase of its $2 billion Project Phoenix, which will include joint ventures in which energy companies will own a majority interest, he said.
“It will be a complete structural change in the petrochemical industry,” Munoz said. As a result, Pemex hopes to see an increase of 10 percent a year in the production of ethanol derivatives, he said.
| 