Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Eli wrote:Well I think they are on the down slope for sure. Their only hope is in the deep water of the gulf. They are not going to find a big field Just south of Tijuana or something.
Another big problem is that they do not have the capitol to develop the deep water gulf. Are they going to have more money as their economy slides into recession?
This the problem with all the mega projects, right now is that they seem extremely cost prohibitive. In a recessionary environment they are going to seem absolutely insane.
6/7/07 BBC Int'l Rep. (Latin America) 00:00:00
BBC International Reports (Latin America)
June 7, 2007
Mexico's Pemex announces new oil finds
Text of report by Mexican newspaper El Financiero website on 4 June
[Report by Alma Lopez: "Pemex Anticipates 3 Discoveries"]
The general manager of Pemex Exploration and Production (PEP), Carlos Morales Gil, has indicated that in the third quarter of this year the parastate company will report the discovery of three new fields in the Chiapas-Tabasco area, which together hold 350m barrels of reserves.
He explained in an interview that the company is moving ahead with the installation of two nitrogen plants in the same area, one of which will go online in July of this year and the other in November, in order to inject nitrogen in two Olmeca crude oil projects.
Drilling also continues in the zone, the goal being to drill 30 wells between 5,000 and 6,500 meters deep on land.
The three deposits that were discovered are not very large, he commented, and will be incorporated into the oil company's proven, probable, and possible reserves once the delimitation wells have been concluded.
Morales Gil reported that of a total PEP investment budget of 138bn pesos this year, 19bn would be for exploration. Some of this money will be earmarked for drilling the third deep-water well in the Holok zone near Coatzacoalcos. Three wells that have turned out to be productive have already been drilled there in 850 meters of water, and further results are expected in a few months.
Although this year Pemex will invest more money in Ku-Maloob-Zaap than in Cantarell, the general manager indicated that as soon as the design of the fourth stage of the country's largest oil deposit is completed, that situation will reverse.
"Ku-Maloob-Zaap is at its peak and therefore is getting greater investment," he explained. In addition, Chicontepec, Veracruz is in the takeoff stage. It is going to be producing for more than 20 years but will be at its peak in 2015, increasing from 25,000 barrels a day at present to 700,000 barrels.
Ku-Maloob-Zaap continues being developed and is producing 500,000 barrels a day. All of the drilling rigs called for in the project have already been installed, and all of the wells drilled so far have turned out to be satisfactory. Forty-five wells have been drilled in the zone, and the plan is to complete 103 within two years.
Some 200 wells are going to be drilled this year in Chicontepec. This marks the beginning of a programme that is going to expand annually, the goal being to drill 1,000 wells a year as of 2009. Some 5.3bn pesos will be invested for this purpose this year, and eventually 10bn pesos a year will be.
Developing Cantarell in recent years has been like managing an inheritance, he said in conclusion, and now the challenge facing Pemex is to invest more of its own funds so that it can gain access to available resources.
YEs, costs are soaring per marginal new barrel obtained.
shortonoil wrote:DantesPeak said:YEs, costs are soaring per marginal new barrel obtained.
According to the EIA the cost of drilling one foot of well has tripled since 1999. This is the result of declining ERoEI, and as the ERoEI of the world’s fields decline, the cost of bring new ones online will increase in $ terms. This is because energy, as it gets rarer, is getting more expensive. Coupled with the fact that we have taken the high quality easy oil, first, and replacement deposits are now only found in deep, difficult to access locations, world production will no longer be able to accommodate the decline in existing fields. Peak is a physical reality, one that the world had better wake up to.
Some 200 wells are going to be drilled this year in Chicontepec.
Pemex is also stepping up development of the onshore Chicontepec oil and gas fields, which are estimated to contain half of the country's known reserves. Chicontepec requires 20,000 production wells to produce 1 million barrels a day, more wells than Pemex has drilled in its 68-year history, Ramirez Corzo added.
Tanada wrote:From looking at that report it appears that Mexico peaked in 2004, so how many here doubt that?
sirrom wrote:if the usa can't get oil from mexico,where will they get it from?
fluffy wrote:sirrom wrote:if the usa can't get oil from mexico,where will they get it from?
Simple. Just invade a middle eastern country, watch as your troops are welcomed with open arms, and get them to pump as much oil as you want. What could possibly go wrong?
MEXICO CITY, June 29 (Reuters) - President Felipe Calderon said on Friday he expected Mexico's crude oil exports to slip further this year and next, underscoring the need for a fiscal reform to make the country less dependent on oil revenues.
"Starting in 2006, the volume of our oil exports has been falling at an alarming rate and from what we have observed up until now, this year and the next will be no exception," Calderon told a banking event.
"It's time we transformed this dependence on oil before it's too late. It's essential that we find more stable sources of financing," said Calderon, who was energy minister under the previous government.
He noted that oil exports in the first five months of 2007 were down by 220,000 bpd, or 11.4 percent, compared to the first five months of 2006.
Pemex: Schlumberger Wins Chicontepec Oil Drilling Contract
June 28, 2007: 01:11 PM EST
VERACRUZ, Mexico -(Dow Jones)- Petroleos Mexicanos has awarded oil services firm Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB) a four-year contract to drill 500 wells in Mexico's Chicontepec oil region, a Pemex official said Thursday.
"There was a tender for 500 wells. Schlumberger bid with another company and they won that bid," Carlos Morales Gil, head of Pemex's exploration and production unit, told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of an oil conference.
Schlumberger will conduct the drilling activities, while Ica-Fluor, a construction joint-venture between Mexico's Empresas ICA (ICA) and Fluor Corp. ( FLR) will provide infrastructure such as pipelines, he said.
"This will start soon, within a month and a half," Morales said.
Morales was unable to confirm the size of the contract, but an oil industry executive said the drilling and infrastructure costs are estimated at $1.4 billion.
A Schlumberger official present at the event declined to confirm or deny the contract win, referring any questions to Pemex.
Oil exports have slid a further 4.4 percent from the 2006 average in the first five months of 2007 to average 1.714 million bpd. The declining volumes coincide with lower oil prices after the historic peaks of the last few years.
Judging from available information, while Mexico is making substantial investment on maintaining and improving existing infrastructure, it appears to be lagging in spending to reach the full productive capacity of new fields.
For example, they gave a contract for 500 wells, but they need to drill 1000 wells per year.
shortonoil wrote:DantesPeak said:Judging from available information, while Mexico is making substantial investment on maintaining and improving existing infrastructure, it appears to be lagging in spending to reach the full productive capacity of new fields.
For example, they gave a contract for 500 wells, but they need to drill 1000 wells per year.
I would advise that anyone owning stock in an oil company that would invest substantial amounts of money in a heavy oil field, made up of wells that produces 50 barrels per day, to sell their stock!
June 30, 2007, 2:16AM
Pemex looks for more efficiency
Official wants to cut dependency on Cantarell field
Pemex now must learn to handle the higher risks of producing oil in Gulf of Mexico waters more than 1,640 feet deep and tapping thousands of pockets of oil in the rugged terrain of southeastern Mexico known as Chicontepec as Cantarell declines at a rate of more than 15 percent this year, Morales said.
It's not clear whether Pemex has the capabilities to produce successfully in deep waters and Chicontepec, which contains fractured oil deposits that require advanced drilling techniques, said David Shields, an independent energy analyst based in Mexico City. Mexican law doesn't allow Pemex to form partnerships with foreign oil companies to gain the technology and risk-sharing it needs, Shields said.
Pemex's decisions are often made by the Mexican president and the Finance Ministry, which controls Pemex's budget, and not by oil executives, he said.
"They have their hands tied," Shields said at the Veracruz conference. "I see Pemex as something that's not moving forward."
July 11, 2007
Mexican Petroleum Loses Billions in Crude Oil Due to Sea Water Seepage
9 Jul - The seepage of water and salt at the Cantarell and Ku Maloob Zaap oilfields, the country's main producers of crude, led Pemex [Mexican Petroleum] to not produce 61.357 million barrels of petroleum over the past three years. The petroleum that was not produced has a value of US$3.85 billion at today's prices.
According to information that Reformarequested from Pemex Exploration and Production Division (PEP) through the Federal Institute for Access to Public Information (IFAI), during the aforementioned period the excess of water and salt compelled the parastate company to not produce an average of 42,000 barrels per day at Cantarell and 14,000 barrels per day at Ku Maloob Zaap. This situation has been documented since 2004, when water began to seep in at the two oilfields.
The PEP notes that, during 2004, 37,500 barrels of oil per day were not produced at Cantarell and 4,600 daily were not produced at Ku Maloob Zaap. In the year 2005 the figures were 33,800 and 7,900 barrels of crude per day, respectively. However, the largest figures were recorded last year, when the two oilfields cut back their production by 55,300 and 29,000 barrels of crude per day, respectively.
The seepage of sea water is caused by a drop in pressure at the production wells in mature oilfields. However, in this case the problem is significant because these active fields are responsible for 67% of the country's total production and together they produce 2.1 million barrels of crude per day.
Pemex has underscored that the drop in total production caused by this situation at these oilfields amounts to less than 1% in all cases and that it does not pose a serious problem.
The seepage of water and salt has caused a great deal of damage at oil wells, and thousands of barrels were not produced at Cantarell (13,688 barrels in 2004 and 20,185 in 2006) and at Ku Maloob Zaap (1,679 in 2004 and 10,585 in 2006).
July 19 (Bloomberg) -- A Mexican guerrilla group that claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on natural gas pipelines owned by Mexico's state oil company this month said it acted ``in self defense'' in a new statement.
The group, the Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, said it is obligated to act against President Felipe Calderon's government because of its repression of popular movements. The group repeated its demand, made on July 10, that the government release two of its missing members.
``We are not criminals, and much less terrorists,'' the group said in its statement posted to a Web site yesterday used by guerrilla movements. ``But up against the latent death threats against our members and the government's fascist offensive against the entire popular movement, we are obliged to exercise the legitimate right of self defense.''
The group's statement suggests it may intend to make good on threats to continue its bombing campaign unless authorities release its members. The office of Mexico's attorney general said in a July 11 press release that no federal prison held the EPR members mentioned in a July 10 statement.
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