Mexico hydrocarbons watch: private players break 80,000b/d mark

Mexican private sector oil players continued to ramp up production rapidly in January, with areas assigned in the country’s oil rounds and other areas operated by private players reaching combined production of 86,000b/d, up 15% over the previous month.

This production has now risen for five consecutive months since last September. The jump between December and January was the biggest so far, adding 11,000b/d of production in one month.

There are various notable private projects that have been picking up pace this year. The most significant include plans by Fieldwood Mexico (which was recently acquired by Lukoil) to end the year producing 37,000b/d at its Ichalkil and Pokoch fields and similar plans by Hokchi to take its Area 2 contract to 32,000b/d in August.

Another key project is Eni México's Area 1, where the firm cleared the project’s main hurdle earlier this year with the arrival of a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility in the Miztón field, where the firm expects to add some 35,000b/d of production in 2022 to reach 65,000b/d.

However, the increased output from privately-held contracts and joint ventures has not been sufficient to push up Mexico’s overall output, due to the dwindling production of national oil giant Pemex, which in January reported a crude output of 1.48Mb/d in its concessions and 82,000b/d in its projects migrated to the contract model, giving a total of 1.56Mb/d, 9,000b/d less than in December.

Hydrocarbons commission CNH's calculation of output does not consider crude condensate as part of oil production, which explains the agency’s mismatch with the company’s own production tally.

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Meanwhile, CNH greenlit a request by Pemex to spud the Iktan exploration well in its 0153-M-Uchukil asset off the coast of Tabasco.

Pemex said expected to find prospective resources totalling 11.1Mboe (million barrels of oil equivalent) with a 57% probability of success. However, and unusually, an investment figure for the well was not disclosed.

Iktan is located adjacent to the Chi exploration well, which the company spudded in 2020.

CNH also rejected three 2022 budget authorizations presented by Pemex, arguing that the plans contradicted previously approved exploration plans for the areas.

The areas in question are A2.TM and G-TMV-04 in the Tampico Misantla basin off the coast of Veracruz state and G-CS-02 off the coast of Tabasco.