BP exec says Mexico needs $200B

Mexico needs to work with private companies to invest as much as $200 billion over the next 20 years in deepwater exploration and drilling, the vice president of exploration and development for BP, Chris Sladen, told a group of oil executives Feb. 21. Sladen’s remarks were reported Feb. 23 by Business News Americas, which covered Sladen’s speech at Pemex’s annual oil technology conference.

Mexico’s state-owned oil firm Pemex has said deepwater reserves could be as much as 54 billion barrels of crude oil equivalent. Pemex lacks the technology, expertise and funding to develop these reserves on its own and so must work with as many industry players as possible, Sladen said.

Pemex is talking to international oil companies, including BP, about helping it to explore deep-sea oil reserves, he added, stressing the need for Pemex to work with foreign firms, because of the significant technical challenges of deepwater exploration.

Banned from creating partnerships with foreign companies, Pemex wants to draw up service contracts for deepwater oil this year and start offering them in 2006.