Mexico’s Pemex Eyes Gas JVs

The head of Mexico’s state-owned oil and gas company says the company wants to become involved in joint ventures aimed at increasing natural gas production in the country.

Carlos Trevino Medina, director general of Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), speaking January 25 with reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said Pemex wants to form more partnerships with private sector companies, specifically aimed at developing natural gas.

While conventional gas development is “not a major area of opportunity” for future development, Medina said the company believes the country’s unconventional gas prospects are a promising area.

“Mexico has great potential in the energy map of the future, by the amount of natural gas we have,” he said. The US Geological Survey has estimated there are 83 trillion ft³ of undiscovered unconventional gas reserves in 10 geological horizons in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, with most of those in Mexico’s Burgos Basin.

Referencing the next auction round for Mexican oil and gas blocks, being held on January 31 and involving 29 deepwater tracts, Medina said Pemex will partner with several companies to bid for the offshore tracts.

Pemex, which last year joined with BHP Billington and others to bid on deep offshore blocks, has formed partnerships with Anglo-Dutch major Shell, China Offshore Oil and others to enter bids.

Medina also said he had a brief meeting in Davos with US energy secretary Rick Perry about the development of the Mexican side of the deep offshore Gulf of Mexico. There is no production there now, even though the geology is similar to that on the US side of the Gulf, where significant natural gas production has been developed.