Mexican Oil Exploration Breaks Record

According to the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH), exploration activity in Mexico hit a 60 percent success rate in 2019, a figure that has not been seen in Mexico since 2013, when the Energy Reform came into force to change the country’s oil and gas industry. Last year, CNH received 60 drilling requests, although only 53 were authorized: 27 on land, 23 in shallow water and three in deepwater. In addition, the regulatory agency explained that there were 12 oil discoveries in 2019.

CNH also reported that 17 of the of the 29 wells that were drilled in 2019 were productive, with PEMEX drilling 12 of these: one in deep water, five in shallow water, two conventional onshore wells and four non-conventional onshore wells. The rest corresponded to BHP Billiton (two deepwater wells on Trion), Murphy Sur (one onshore well), Talos Energy (one shallow water well in Zama) and Hokchi Energy (one shallow water well).

At the end of January, CNH presented the 2020 Strategic Plan and announced that in 2019 the institution had managed to reduce approval times for exploration applications by 29 percent compared to the previous year. 

AMEXHI
In this context, Merlin Cochran, Director General of the Mexican Association of Hydrocarbon Companies (AMEXHI), told Notimex last week that private companies expect to increase their production by 50 percent in 2020 to an average of 75,000 barrels per day. According to CNH, in 2019 private companies ended the year with 3 percent of the country’s total production averaging 48,000 barrels per day, while the remaining 97 percent was accounted for by PEMEX.