Mexico Looks to Play Catchup with Deepwater Oil Exploration

While the U.S. has spent two decades scouring the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico for oil, neighboring Mexico is just getting started.

Output from Mexico’s traditional fields is in free fall, forcing state-run Petroleos Mexicanos to move into more difficult terrain in an effort to maintain its status as a major crude exporter.


Pemex is paying the price for the late start. It expects to see its first barrels from fields in waters deeper than 1,640 feet in 2015. By 2017 the company forecasts 92,000 barrels a day in deepwater output, a fraction of total production and not enough to offset the 500,000-barrel-a day decline it expects to see at the giant Cantarell oil field over the next nine years.

Mexican production was at 2.7 million barrels a day in November, down from peak output of 3.4 million barrels a day in 2004.

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