Q: Kasoil is a Mexican exploration and oil-field services provider. How is your portfolio balanced?

PG: Recently, we diversified our client and project portfolio. Last year, 90 percent of our services were offered to PEMEX and 10 percent to other operators. Now, we are approaching a 50-50 distribution. This puts us in an interesting position within the market: we are more than ready to take advantage of a strengthened PEMEX but we are also providing more support to the ongoing work of the bidding-round winners.

Q: What is the new operators’ approach to reserve incorporation and how do you benefit?

JM: From the moment they are awarded a field, they have an investment plan that represents a contractual commitment to incorporate the indicated reserves within a set amount of time. This motivates them to integrate exploration service providers and exploratory activity into their field development plan. This is very beneficial for us because it gives us a very clear idea of how we will participate in the project. Their business plans are wellstructured to achieve the commitment they signed with Mexico in terms of reserve incorporation. Their investments, stable finances and agile processes also give us a chance to apply new technologies to reservoir characterization, identifying new geological areas of opportunity to increase production volumes.

PG: With the discovery at Zama and the drilling success at the Eni fields, new private operators in Mexico have proven they can play a key role in national reserve incorporation. Reserve increases in Mexico used to be a slow process; particularly after the downturn, exploration investment slowed significantly. This gap has been effectively filled by these new private stakeholders; as a matter of fact, reserve incorporation has accelerated as a result of their participation.

JM: To be clear, PEMEX’s reserve incorporation is getting faster as well. Not only its reserve incorporation on its own, but its general transition from initial exploratory success to production. For example, the strategically important light oil Xikin field that PEMEX discovered in 2015 is one in which we have already finished the wells’ variable speed drive design, which is also comfortably within our technical capabilities. Our success in that phase has allowed us to be part of the follow-up toward production execution.

Q: How do you add value to your services in a way that allows you to compete with the oil-field services Big Four?

PG: Local companies like ours can provide the same technologies and innovative methodologies that the Big Four provide but at significantly competitive prices. We also have a more direct link with much larger volumes of national content, which not only comes with contractual advantages but also the added value of localized know-how and operational agility. All of this contributes to optimizing our cost offerings in a way that can make us a much better choice for specific projects.

JM: Our added value comes directly from our access to human resources. It also comes from our previous experiences working for the Big Four, where we would sadly witness that revenue from Mexico was leaving the country to support these corporation’s presence in other Latin American markets where they were not earning enough to have a self-sufficient business segment, like Venezuela and Colombia. By reinvesting in Mexican talent and local content, we create a manageable and sustainable corporate structure that, while smaller, can easily compete with any one of these larger companies.

Q: What role does Kasoil want to play in the growth of the oil and gas sector, both in Tabasco and nationally?

JM: We want to generate value for our current project that fits the elevated technical profile of our company. We want to continue building a highly trained team that can respond effectively to the opportunities and needs of the state’s industry. Strategically, we will sign alliances with transnational companies to participate in EPC projects.

Kasoil is a Mexican exploration service provider founded by female oil and gas workers left unemployed after the downturn created a crisis in the state of Tabasco. It also provides integrated oil-field services and talent management.