Pemex withdraws from Round One bid

National oil company Pemex announced on Wednesday that it withdrew its participation from Mexico’s Round One tender.

Next week’s tender will feature 14 shallow-water exploration blocks located in the southern portion of the Gulf of Mexico. The tender scheduled for Wednesday is an opportunity for private companies to enter the country’s energy market after last year’s reforms privatised the oil and gas industry.

Pemex’s departure closely follows four companies leaving the round earlier this week including US independent Noble Energy, Colombia’s Ecopetrol, Thailand’s PTTEP and US commodities company Glencore. The National Hydrocarbons Commission, the state regulatory body in charge of the tendering process, did not clarify the reasons the firms bowed out of the bid.

Pemex received 83 percent of the country’s proven and probable reserves and 32 billion barrels of oil equivalent in total reserves in last year’s non-competitive Round Zero. In a statement on Wednesday, Energy Secretary Pedro Joaquin Coldwell said that it was ” better to concentrate its resources” on future bidding opportunities.” Future bids will feature the country’s sought-after deepwater fields in the Gulf of Mexico.

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