Pemex to drill exploration well near Zama

Amidst unitisation talks with Talos Energy, Mexican NOC Pemex is planning to drill an exploration well near Zama-1, where Talos made a billion-barrel discovery last year, international media reported on Thursday.

Pemex is in the process of finalising a rig tender for the Asab-1 well, which will gather more information for appraisal and support the unitisation talks.

“We will drill that as soon as possible, as soon as we have the contract, so we can have better information on that basin,” Pemex general director Carlos Treviño Medina told Upstream Online. “Then we expect to share that information with Talos, Premier and Sierra.”

Talos Energy announced on July 12, 2017 that it, along with partners Sierra Oil & Gas and Premier Oil, had made a significant discovery offshore Mexico through the Zama-1 wildcat well. Initial tests have indicated that Zama could hold up to 1.4 billion-2 billion barrels of original oil in place.

The unitisation talks are a first for Mexico. Because Pemex had been the only player in the domestic E&P sector prior to the country’s 2014 energy reform, regulators and the NOC had not previously dealt with a shared-resource situation.