Drillers bid adios to Canada, hola to Mexico

CALGARY – Calgary-based drillers are ripping out heaters and installing air conditioning units on their rigs as the crews trade winter gloves for sunblock to get in on a growing Mexican oil boom.

As low natural gas prices continue to idle drilling equipment in Canada, the national oil company of Mexico is implementing plans to invest $240 billion US over the next 14 years to stoke its declining domestic industry.

Several Calgary drilling companies have moved rigs under contract tothearid Chicontepec region in east-central Mexico, the focus area for Petroleos Mexicanos, the state oil monopoly known as Pemex, and more are on their way.

One small Calgary company, Xtreme Coil Drilling Corp., has no rigs at all left in Canada and has moved many of its management functions to Houston as it prepares to relocate its ninth and 10th rigs into Chicontepec from Texas. Of the six rigs it has left in the United States, only three had wells to drill earlier this week.

“We don’t have a single rig in Canada rightnow–Canada for us has been a real challenge,” said Rod Uchytil, Xtreme president and chief executive, who had two rigs probing for shallow gas in Alberta until about a year ago.

Calgary Herald