Carso Acquires TotalEnergies' 30% in Block 30, KAN Discovery

Carlos Slim's Grupo Carso has executed a binding agreement with TotalEnergies to acquire its 30% non-operated stake in Block 30, a highly prospective shallow-water block located in Mexico's Cuenca Salina del Istmo. The acquisition will be carried out through Mx Delta NRG 1, a subsidiary of Carso’s upstream investment arm Zamajal, leaving UK-based Harbour Energy as the block's sole remaining partner and operator with a 70% share. Block 30 features the high-profile KAN discovery made in 2023, which holds an estimated 200 to 300 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe) in light crude reserves. This transaction marks a distinct corporate turn for Grupo Carso; by building on its earlier 2026 acquisition of an expanded stake in the Zama field, the conglomerate is utilizing Zamajal to consolidate a low-risk, non-operated minority portfolio in high-value, shallow-water light crude assets alongside premier international operators.

Grupo Carso reached a binding agreement with TotalEnergies on July 16 to acquire the 30% interest that the French energy company holds in Block 30, an oil area in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The operation will be carried out through Mx Delta NRG 1, a subsidiary of Zamajal, a company in which Grupo Carso holds 80% and Control Empresarial de Capitales holds the remaining 20%.

Upon completion of the transaction, Harbour Energy — the operator of Block 30 — will retain its 70% interest, and Harbour Energy and Mx Dlta Nrg 1 will be the only partners in the production-sharing contract. Completion of the transaction remains subject to the required government approvals. The transaction amount was not disclosed.

Block 30 is located in the Cuenca Salina del Istmo in Mexico's shallow waters, 29 kilometers from the coast, and contains the KAN discovery and reservoir. The block is a production-sharing contract for hydrocarbon exploration in shallow waters, with a total area of 30.5 square kilometers, well depths between 3,300 and 3,750m, and a water depth of 40 to 50m, in the Southeastern Basins petroleum province, for the extraction of light crude oil.

The KAN discovery — made in 2023 — is the block's headline commercial asset. Estimated at between 200 and 300MMboe, it represents one of the most significant light crude discoveries made in Mexican waters under a production-sharing contract in the past decade. The production-sharing contract was awarded in April 2018 by the then-Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos following the corresponding international public tender, originally granted to a consortium comprising Premier Oil, Deutsche Erdoel Mexico — now Harbour Energy — and SEP Block 30 — now TotalEnergies — with a 25-year term.

The Reversal

The Block 30 acquisition is a direct reversal of the posture Carlos Slim projected publicly at his foundation's press conference in late May 2026, when he declared the Lakach deepwater gas project "irrational," said his companies "never entered" the project in operational terms, and added that for the moment he was not seeking further projects with PEMEX. That statement, made five weeks ago, was widely read as Grupo Carso stepping back from hydrocarbon commitments.

The TotalEnergies deal is the second upstream hydrocarbons acquisition Carso has executed through Zamajal in 2026 alone. In March, Carso closed through Zamajal the purchase of an additional 30.1% of Talos Energy México 7, the owner of a 17.4% participation in the Zama field. Together with the Block 30 acquisition, these transactions make Zamajal an active minority acquisition vehicle for upstream Mexican hydrocarbons positions — a business line that was not publicly visible as a Carso strategic priority before 2026.

The apparent contradiction between Slim's public Lakach remarks and these acquisition moves is reconcilable with a careful reading of what he actually said. His exit from Lakach was about deepwater gas at a specific geological complexity and price-to-alternative-onshore-volume ratio he found unviable. The Zama field and Block 30's KAN discovery are both shallow-water light crude plays — the kind of short-timeline, commercially proven geology that Slim explicitly contrasted favorably with Lakach when he pointed to Ixachi as a better use of capital.

TotalEnergies' Exit Logic

Block 30 was originally awarded to a consortium comprising Premier Oil, Deutsche Erdoel Mexico — now Harbour Energy — and SEP Block 30 — now TotalEnergies — under a 25-year contract. TotalEnergies' decision to exit its 30% non-operated position is consistent with the broader portfolio rationalization that major European energy companies have been executing across their Latin American and emerging market upstream holdings. TotalEnergies has been a significant presence in Mexico through its production-sharing contracts, including deepwater blocks in the Southeastern Basins. Divesting a non-operated 30% minority position in a shallow-water evaluation-stage block — however promising the KAN discovery — allows the French major to concentrate capital on its operated positions and its LNG portfolio, where it holds greater commercial control and strategic relevance.

The Cuenca Salina as Mexico's Next Upstream Frontier

The Cuenca Salina del Istmo is the geological province that GMEC's Gonzalo Monroy had specifically identified as holding the highest prospective potential for Petrobras's sub-salt seismic interpretation capabilities, in his commentary on the PEMEX-Petrobras MoU signed in June. Block 30 is located about 29 km offshore in Mexico's shallow waters and contains the Kan discovery. The production-sharing contract covers an area of 30.5 sq km in the Isthmus Saline Basin and is intended for the production of light crude oil.

The province sits at the intersection of Mexico's conventional shallow-water production legacy and the sub-salt deep-formation potential that Petrobras explored in the Santos Basin. If Petrobras's technical collaboration with PEMEX extends to the Cuenca Salina as Monroy suggested would be more commercially viable than a Cantarell deepwater push, Grupo Carso's Block 30 position places Zamajal as a potential partner alongside Harbour Energy in the same geological province where the most technically sophisticated future exploration activity may concentrate.

Zamajal as Carso's Upstream Vehicle

The repeated use of Zamajal as the acquisition entity across the Zama stake and now Block 30 is the clearest signal yet that Grupo Carso has formalized upstream hydrocarbons as a dedicated investment line within the conglomerate — not as an opportunistic or politically motivated positioning, but as a structured vehicle for minority participation in producing and near-producing Mexican oil assets operated by technically capable international partners.

That model — non-operated minority stakes alongside experienced operators like Harbour Energy and Talos, in short-cycle light crude plays with proven geology — is exactly the opposite of the complex, deepwater, technically unprecedented gas development that Lakach represented. It also avoids the mixed contract model's structural complications: Zamajal acquires private production-sharing contract stakes under the original CNH bidding round framework, without the 54%-CFE-minimum requirement of the current mixed contract architecture.