New E&P contracts signed in Mexico

MEXICO CITY, September 26, 2017 – At an event on Monday, Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) signed 10 new E&P contracts with winners of the country’s June 2017 Round 2.1 tender.

Among the group was Pemex Exploración y Producción (PEP), the upstream arm of the country’s state oil company, which signed two Exploration and Extraction Contracts (CEEs) for Tampico-Misantla Basin Area 2 and Southeastern Basins Area 8.

PEP will join up with Colombian NOC Ecopetrol in the first area, taking a 70% operating stake. In the latter block, the company will hold a 50% operating interest, while its partner, Germany’s Deutsche Erdoel, will hold the remainder.

Ecopetrol also firmed up a CEE for Southeastern Basins Area 6, which the company will develop with PC Carigali México, the local subsidiary of Malaysia’s Petronas.

Other companies that participated in the signing ceremony were major multinationals Eni, Total, Repsol, Lukoil and Shell, as well as smaller private players Capricorn Energy, Citla Energy and Sierra Oil & Gas.

“I wish that the tasks that they perform in these blocks have the same, or perhaps, greater exploratory success than the winners of the [Round] 1.1 and 1.2 tenders, where crude findings have been confirmed that will favour the incorporation of reserves,” Secretary of Energy Pedro Joaquín Coldwell said at the event.

Coldwell also said that combined production from these 10 shallow-water blocks was projected at more than 170,000 boepd. According to the CNH, the investment expected over the lifetime of these initial 30-year CEEs is around USD 8.2 billion.

Winners of these blocks now have 180 days to submit their exploration work plans to the CNH for approval.

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