Preventative maintenance as a competitive edge

Mexico

Omar Reyes, CFO of Energía Naviera, talks to The Energy Year about the significance of the company’s recent acquisition of E-NAV Offshore and its strategic approach to operating and maintaining vessels. Energía Naviera is a vessel and rig operator that chaters to Mexico’s offshore oil and gas sector.

Tell us about Energía Naviera and the assets you operate.
Energía Naviera is a Mexican company specialised in the operation and chartering of vessels. We currently have seven vessels and one platform in our fleet. We have the Tehuana and La Bamba, vessels which both have contracts with Pemex and are specialised to operate in Mexico’s shallow waters. Furthermore, following our recent acquisition of E-NAV, we added the Peregrina and Saguaro vessels to our fleet. These are large vessels, the same size as La Bamba and Tehuana, but are dedicated to the PSV [platform supply vessel] market. Their function is to go to port and supply materials to drilling platforms.
Apart from these, we also operate three other smaller vessels for a client. Two of these are also for the PSV market and the final one is called a fast supply vessel, which is a passenger carrier. It is important to note that this year we are looking to add three or four new vessels to our operations, as today as a company we have momentum and we want to build on this and continue growing the vessels under our operation.
Finally, the last piece in our fleet is the sole drilling platform we operate, called Sandunga.

What does the acquisition of E-NAV Offshore represent for Energía Naviera?
We bought E-NAV Offshore in October 2024 and we are just finishing the integration process. Usually, the process of merging and integrating two companies takes around a year, but we have managed to finish this process in four and half months, from the operation of the vessels to all the administrative, system, banking and legal considerations. We have notified all the relevant secretaries and dependencies. Everything is finished.
This transaction is a big milestone for us as through it we have added the Peregrina and Saguaro vessels to our fleet. This will allow us to enter the large PSV market, which at the time of the transaction was a market in which we were not participating, as our vessels La Bamba and Tehuana are designed to serve Mexico’s shallow-water oil and gas infrastructure, which only Pemex can make full use of.
Therefore, our acquisition of E-NAV and its two vessels has opened up a whole realm of new opportunities for us, particularly to increase our work with IOCs.
Furthermore, this acquisition highlights a shift in our strategy. A couple of years ago, we were focused on renting, not acquisition, but today with the growth and inertia we are experiencing in the market, we saw this as a good opportunity and we took it. We expect that as we continue expanding, further opportunities will open up. For instance, we now have a new client which wants us to operate another three vessels, in line with our goals to increase our fleet further.

Tell us about your approach to the maintenance of your vessels and its importance to your operations.
We work differently from other companies as we focus on preventative maintenance, whether the boat is ours or a third party’s. We give them all the same priority. For example, when ships enter dock for maintenance, most companies only cover class issues, which includes cleaning the hull, the bottom and the propulsors, and they just replace the pieces that are failing. However, at Energía Naviera, even if the equipment isn’t failing, we change it, as this is ultimately more efficient and cheaper.
It takes at least 30 days to change simple packages on these vessels and these 30 days can represent big losses if these failures happen during a contract. Therefore, we make sure to get ahead of these issues. We have not seen other companies operate in the same way. We don’t know if this is due to a lack of administration, direction, systems, or resources, but it is surprising to us.
Furthermore, we also work with an SAP system, which allows us to efficiently control and monitor our operations. For example, we recently began operating a vessel that had been inactive for nine months due to an issue with its crane. Within 30 days we had it working, and this capacity is all down to the people, systems and controls we have implemented through this technology, giving us the necessary information to control costs and make informed decisions. Another example is the Sandunga platform we operate, which in the whole of last year only stopped working for one hour, and in 2023, for eight hours.

What new opportunities are you looking at in Mexico and abroad, and what openings do you see for expanding your work with IOCs?
Today, La Bamba and Tehuana are working with Pemex, but for the rest, we are trying to prevent them from entering new operations with the NOC. Peregrina is currently on a contract with Eni, and Saguaro is inactive, although we are currently looking at many options, including markets in the Caribbean: Guyana, Suriname and even Trinidad and Tobago. They are launching bids for this year, so this could be an interesting option for us.
Moreover, we see a big opportunity to expand our work with IOCs, as the crises of 2015 and 2020, along with Pemex’s failure to pay its debts since 2023, have severely diminished the number of shipyards in operation. This is making it increasingly difficult for IOCs to rent ships for their operations.
As a consequence, these IOCs are instead acquiring their own assets and vessels. However, it makes no sense for international companies to come to Mexico and establish their own shipyards. Ultimately, this is where we come in and can take charge of the operation of these IOC-owned vessels. For example, for 2026 we are already looking at a possible contract with Repsol, who came to us regarding a project they want to undertake to reactivate a field in Mexico.

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