Mexico targets 50% jump in oil output
a new plan for the industry. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office on Dec. 1, wants to revive Pemex, which has become heavily indebted as crude output fell from a peak of nearly 3.4 million barrels per day ( bpd) in 2004 to less than 1.8 million in October.
“It’s a new Pemex rescue,” Lopez Obrador said alongside Romero in the port of Ciudad del Carmen in the southern Gulf of Mexico shortly before his government was due to present its first budget with Pemex’s finances under close scrutiny.
Under the plan, Mexican crude output is due to climb to some 2.624 million barrels bpd by the end of 2024, while gas production will also rise by about 50 percent.
Output will stabilize in the coming months and start to pick up toward the end of next year, the Pemex CEO said. However, projections presented in the government’s first budget later on Saturday suggested output would continue falling until 2020.
The veteran leftist Lopez Obrador has said that he will respect 110 private oil contracts awarded under his predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto, but this month challenged oil majors to start pumping oil quickly, offering them a three-year “truce,” without giving further details.
In the meantime, Mexico will speed up exploitation of 20 mostly offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico, Romero said.
To this end, contracts for the necessary infrastructure will be awarded on Jan. 15 and to drill wells on Jan. 31, he added.
Most of the fields are offshore and the government plans to issue “integrated” infrastructure contracts, Romero said. The drilling of the wells would be “turnkey” contracts that made the companies or consortiums respon- sible for delivery. Pemex will be responsible for the engineering and supervision of the services. By December 2019, the 20 fields should yield 73,000 bpd of output, Romero said.
Energy Secretary Rocio Nahle told reporters in the city that priority would be given to Mexican firms in the contracting process, based on a restricted list of invitees.
Romero said nine companies had expressed interest in drilling the offshore wells, and five others had done so for the four onshore fields. All are majority Mexican- owned, he said.