Pemex Seeks Multiple Alliances for Deep-Water Oil

Petroleos Mexicanos, the third- biggest oil supplier to the U.S., needs to enter alliances with several companies to help it develop deep-water oil fields, said Mexico Energy Minister Georgina Kessel.

Her comments come three days after Pemex warned of a “critical” situation because oil and natural gas reserves have dropped by half since the beginning of 2002. The company estimates it has almost 30 billion barrels of oil in Gulf of Mexico deep waters. Deep-water drilling has gone slow because of Pemex’s lack of experience, the cost and a worldwide dearth of drilling rigs.
Pemex needs to push its exploration and production into waters more than 500 meters deep to make up in the long term for a production decline at Cantarell, the world’s third-largest oil field.

Pemex has ordered three-dimensional seismic mapping of the ocean floor in deep water and has sunk four exploratory wells in waters as deep as 900 meters. The water depth at the offshore giant Cantarell is about 60 meters.

In one of the deep-water exploratory fields, called Lakach, Pemex discovered a reserve of natural gas, possibly the company’s fourth largest gas-only field, according to an e- mailed report today. Many times, both gas and oil are found together.

Bloomberg