Mexico to add 2018 heavy oil auction

Oil and gas regulators are moving quickly to add a heavy oil auction to Round 3 before the end of the year, Mexican Deputy Secretary of Energy for Hydrocarbons Aldo Flores Quiroga said on Wednesday.

Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of CERAWeek, the secretary said that the aim is to schedule the auction for these blocks, located in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, ahead of the administration change in mid-2018. The addition of this tender would help maintain the momentum of the energy reform launched under current President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2014.

“There is a very large potential there. We are seeing this [project] as a package, but have not yet defined the specific model for it. We are evaluating it,” Secretary Flores was quoted by Reuters as saying.

If successful, the heavy oil round would be the fourth tender in the Round 3 bidding process, and the fifth auction launched in Mexico during 2018.

Meanwhile, Pemex general director Carlos Treviño, who is also attending CERAWeek, told Bloomberg yesterday that he was concerned about the pace of the energy reform.

“Someone who doesn’t believe in the energy reform may reduce the speed very much and I think that would be a shame in Mexico,” Treviño said, referring to presidential frontrunner Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “The energy reform has a lot of benefits to the country, to the people, so the the worst case scenario in my point of view is that the speed that we are implementing the energy reform will be reduced.”