The Mexican state oil company Pemex has announced one of its biggest discoveries in years, unveiling new shallow water oil fields in the southern Gulf of Mexico that it says could produce 200,000 barrels per day by mid-2018.
The total proven, probable and possible reserves of the fields could be as high as 350m barrels of crude-oil equivalent, said Pemex’s chief executive officer, Emilio Lozoya.
The new fields off the coast of Tabasco and Campeche states comprised three of light crude and one of heavy crude, and could start coming onstream in 16 months, Pemex said.
“It’s a recent achievement and one of great magnitude,” Lozoya said.
The fields would take around three years to reach their full 200,000 barrel per day capacity, said Jose Antonio Escalera, director of exploration for Pemex.
Pemex described the finds as its biggest exploration success in the last five years after the discoveries in Tsimin-Xux and Ayatsil, also in the southern Gulf.
Located near the super-giant Cantarell oil field found in the 1970s and Pemex’s most productive current field, Ku Maloob Zaap, the finds could boost revenue for the government, which relies on Pemex income for about a third of the federal budget.
Lozoya said the discoveries could also make the company reconsider its production forecasts.
The new hydrocarbon finds were also expected to generate production of 170m cubic feet of gas per day.
Output at Pemex has fallen from a peak of 3.4m barrels per day in 2004 to less than 2.4m currently.
Following a reform to end the company’s oil and gas monopoly, Pemex also faces the prospect of tough competition from oil majors and other private companies coming to Mexico.
Mexico will auction 14 oil and gas exploration and production blocks not far from the new fields this summer, and energy minister Pedro Joaquin Coldwell said the finds would make the tenders more attractive.
paulo1 on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 7:51 am
Wow…about 20 days of US consumption in total find.
Stop the presses….PO is DEAD. No worries, move along.
dooberheim on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 8:44 am
Is Canterell really the highest producing Pemex field now? I thought it was Ku-Maloob-Zaap.
DK
GregT on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 9:36 am
350m barrels of crude-oil equivalent?
Equivalent in what? Color? Smell? Weight? Volume? Transparency?
eugene on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 9:53 am
We live in the age of making a mole hill a mountain. Much ado about little.
Plantagenet on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 10:57 am
Congrats to Pemex. This sounds like a nice little find.
hiruitnguyse on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 11:08 am
Lord help us, our global oil supply discoveries these days is like a bunch of potheads spaced out in front of South Park, crawling through the carpet trying to find the seeds they dropped and a pair of tweezers with a fine enough point.
Plantagenet on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 11:59 am
You must have a very long shag carpet if you have to “crawl through it”.
If you have this problem often, I suggest you switch to hardwood floors.
BobInget on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 12:15 pm
Big oil finds are always announced around Mexican Elections.
I know, I know, I’ve neglected Mexico in my
‘Oil Wars’ posts. So many oil wars so little time.
Candidates for public office are being targeted by ruthless criminal groups hoping to influence Mexico’s June 7 elections, according to media reports. The most recent victim was Hector Lopez Cruz, a candidate from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, killed in a drive-by shooting Thursday.
In recent months, more than a dozen candidates have been killed, kidnapped or threatened across Mexico. Last week, in the state of Michoacan, mayoral candidate Enrique Hernández Salcedo from the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party was killed after a campaign rally. The Morena party has described Hernández’s murder as a “state crime,” and accused the state government of failing to protect candidates, reported, TeleSur.
BobInget on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 12:24 pm
PEMEX is government run, owned.
ANY government needs to keep it’s population in check. Even a little panic brings on inflation, riots.
Mexican voters in this ‘mid term’ election tossed out the two main political parties and elected an Independent.
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/ruling-party-leads-1st-independent-wins-in-mexico-elections/
Lawfish1964 on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 12:24 pm
3.9 days of world consumption. Woo-hoo! Party on! Almost 4 more days of BAU.
BobInget on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 12:26 pm
This item is only oil related my marriage.
Big Layoffs Coming
The Calgary Herald reports on the and the “threat of big layoffs” as Canada’s Oilsands Pave the Way for Driverless Trucks.
The 400-tonne heavy haulers that rumble along the roads of northern Alberta’s oilsands sites are referred to in Fort McMurray as “the biggest trucks in the world,” employing thousands of operators to drive the massive rigs through the mine pits.
Increasingly, however, the giant trucks are capable of getting around without a driver. Indeed, self-driving trucks are already in use at many operations in the province, although they are still operated by drivers while the companies test whether the systems can work in northern Alberta’s variable climate.
That is about to change.
Suncor Energy Inc., Canada’s largest oil company, confirmed this week it has entered into a five-year agreement with Komatsu Ltd., the Japanese manufacturer of earthmoving and construction machines, to purchase new heavy haulers for its mining operations north of Fort McMurray. All the new trucks will be “autonomous-ready,” meaning they are capable of operating without a driver, Suncor spokesperson Sneh Seetal said.
For Suncor’s roughly 1,000 heavy-haul truck operators, however, the prospect of driverless trucks has raised more immediate fears of significant job losses.
“It’s very concerning to us as to what the future may hold,” said Ken Smith, president of Unifor Local 707A, which represents 3,300 Suncor employees. Smith said Suncor has signed agreements to purchase 175 driverless trucks.
“It’s not fantasy,” Suncor’s chief financial officer Alister Cowan told investors at an RBC Capital Markets conference in New York last week. He said the company is working to replace its fleet of heavy haulers with automated trucks “by the end of the decade.”
“That will take 800 people off our site,” Cowan said of the trucks. “At an average (salary) of $200,000 per person, you can see the savings we’re going to get from an operations perspective.”
Not Just Suncor
Some companies though will not comment on the prospect.
Imperial Oil Ltd. spokesperson Pius Rolheiser would not say whether his company was testing the trucks at the company’s Kearl oilsands mine.
Shell Canada Ltd. said it is “exploring” automated hauling.
Canada’s largest drillers, Precision Drilling Corp. and Ensign Energy Services Ltd., use high-tech drilling rigs capable of moving autonomously between oil wells throughout North America.
As soon as one company makes the push the others have to follow or their ongoing operating expenses will be higher.
These truck driving jobs will be the first to go.
Then again, please keep in mind Today’s G7 Communique that seeks a 70% Reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, and 100% by 2100.
Apparently we don’t need these stinking jobs anyway. They will be replaced by free wind-power from all the windbags in D.C.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Mike Mish Shedlock at 3:55 PM
Plantagenet on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 1:42 pm
@Lawfish
Your suggestion that Pemex’s new find will be used up in “3.9 days” is silly.
The new oil field will produce 200,000 bbls/day for many many years.
The oil biz doesn’t work the way you think. Oil fields aren’t used up one after another—you don’t pump one dry and go on to the next one. Instead, thousands of separate oil fields each contribute smaller amounts of oil for decades and decades.
Get it now?
Perk Earl on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 2:43 pm
Bobinget, unless some kind of worker protection legislation is enacted, more and more jobs are going to be replaced by automation. There was a Twilight zone episode about replacing jobs people do with computers, long before the reality of both computers and robotics making this nightmare a reality. This approach to greater profits at the expense of employment shoots the overall economy in the foot, because as more robotics replaces human labor there is less money being spent by consumers.
Unfortunately future trends suggests greater poverty for the disenfranchised masses from declining net energy and greater profits for the top .01%. I keep wondering how far this will get pushed before there is widespread unrest, and then what do TPTB do to settle the unrest peacefully? It will reach a point in which the disenfranchised become the enemy of the top .01% and then what happens? Are tiny insect-like drones sent out at night to pierce a hole in window bug screen to inject people while they’re sleeping between 3-4 AM so they become docile, lethargic or worse, diseased or dead?
Tom on Thu, 11th Jun 2015 10:50 pm
Cantarell oil field, at its peak, produced 2.1 million barrels per day. Total recoverable reserves, 17 BILLION barrels of CRUDE OIl, not crude oil equivalent. My, how things have changed.
HARM on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 3:27 am
@Plant,
Lawfish didn’t say Pemex’s (still theoretical) 350m new barrels of oil would all be used up in 3.9 days. He said it was *equivalent* to 3.9 days of world consumption. And he’s right:
http://phillipsandco.com/files/2314/1927/4520/IEA_-_World_Oil_Demand.png
HARM on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 3:48 am
And the global yearly total of new oil reserves has not shot to the moon over the past 50 years, it has dramatically declined:
http://planetforlife.com/images/growinggap.jpg
The only thing keeping prices below $100 right now is shale/frack oil and weak consumer demand (ie, income/wages).
Beery on Fri, 12th Jun 2015 11:35 am
At least the reporter had the honesty to refrain from calling it “huge”, although I’m not sure the word “large” is much of an improvement.