Pemex getting 'ready for the next decade'

Mexican national oil company Pemex plans to invest heavily over the next decade in an effort to maintain production levels in the country's south, a senior Pemex official said Thursday.

Speaking at an afternoon gathering during Petroleum Exhibition and Conference of Mexico (PECOM) 2009, Jose R. Serrano Lozano, Pemex E&P subdirector for the Southern Region, said the company aims to drill as many as 160 exploratory wells per year in the 392km² area, which includes stretches of the Gulf of Mexico offshore the states of Tabasco, Veracruz and Campeche.

'We have to be ready for the next decade,' Serrano said during the Villahermosa conference, which ended Thursday.

Serrano said the company's southern division is currently engaged in 14 exploratory projects and gathering 2D and 3D seismic, largely in an effort to revitalize mature and abandoned fields. Seventy-five drilling rigs are at work in the region, he said.

'These are mature fields, and we are reactivating them,' Serrano said.

New fields will need to be discovered and developed, he said, in order to achieve production goals of 500,000b/d. In 2009, the region reached a level of 495,000b/d after significant declines earlier in the decade.

'We have been declining year after year, but we are coping with this,' he said.

Pemex has budgeted 44.3 billion pesos for exploration in the region next year, 26.1 billion pesos of which will be dedicated to drilling.

Enhanced production techniques have helped boost the output of mature fields like Macuspana and Delta del Grijalva, where production rose 237% last year from a 2008 low, Serrano said.

'In every asset we are implementing the same strategy, and it is working,' he said.

Pemex is assembling a diverse portfolio of artificial lift methods, including nitrogen injection, CO₂ injection and steam - that has so far boosted production by 7000b/d of a targeted 16,000b/d, he said. Without the company's 'aggressive and intensive approach,' Serrano said, the region's production would quickly drop to around 300,000b/d.

Pemex is also battling a negative image among many Mexican citizens, despite recent actions that have greatly reduced accidents and environmental violations, he said.

'We have very clean projects, very modern,' he said, noting a 46% reduction in claims made against the company between 2006 and 2009. 'We want to minimize our environmental impact.'

Serrano's remarks echoed many of those made by Pemex E&P director general Carlos Morales Gil during the opening ceremony for PECOM 2009, which drew some 4000 delegates.

Click here to view a Photo Album of photos around the Exhibit Floor.

By: Russell McCulley, rmculley@oilonline.com