Mexican regulator announces deepwater round

The National Hydrocarbons Commission announced on Wednesday that it was planning an auction for deepwater assets, after successfully awarding all 25 onshore contracts on tender in the bidding round on the same day.

Ten blocks in deep and ultra-deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico will be on offer. The prequalification process will extend to operators and their financial partners for the first time in Mexican auctions. Operators are required to have assets of at least $2 billion.

The ministry will employ a licence contract model that resembles concessions. Citing in a statement the highly volatile price of oil, the ministry said only deepwater blocks would be on offer.

The offshore round announcement follows Wednesday’s successful onshore round, designed to revive Mexico’s newly privatised oil and gas industry. A share of 80% of contracts at the onshore round were awarded to Mexican companies, while the remaining 20% were awarded to consortia including Mexican and foreign companies. Out of the 25 contracts on offer eight areas were in Nuevo León, six were in Veracruz, five in Chiapas and Tabasco each, and one area was in Tamaulipas.

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