UPDATE 1-Mexico’s Pemex reaches deal to see if Talos find reaches its block

9/21/2018 – Reuters

REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

MEXICO CITY, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Mexican state oil firm Pemex has reached a preliminary agreement with a consortium led by Talos Energy to evaluate whether the group’s find in the Gulf of Mexico extends into a neighboring Pemex block, the companies said in a statement on Thursday.

The deal, which covers territory in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, is the first of its kind for Pemex and will be in force for two years.

The Talos consortium, which includes Britain’s Premier Oil and Mexico’s Sierra Oil & Gas, won development rights for two blocks during the first oil auction launched by President Enrique Pena Nieto. Held in 2015, the auction marked the end of Pemex’s decades-long monopoly.

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Mexico should tap natural gas to offset U.S. ‘supply risk’: regulator

09/21/2018 – Reuters 

Mexico should speed up development of its natural gas reserves, including potentially massive shale deposits, to curb a growing “supply risk” fed by excessive dependence on U.S. supplies, the industry regulator proposed on Thursday.

While the country has long been a major oil and gas producer, an extended output slump forced Mexico last year to turn to foreign supplies for 84 percent of its total natural gas demand, almost all of which came from the United States.

The commodity is increasingly used to fuel the country’s growing manufacturing sector as well as its electricity needs.

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Mexico’s new president should postpone oil auctions: former Pemex official

09/20/2018 – Reuters 

A former Petroleos Mexicanos [PEMX.UL] board member said on Wednesday Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has enough political support to change the nation’s energy law and should postpone planned competitive oil auctions until the law is revised.

Fluvio Ruiz Alarcon said, following an address at the Baker Institute of Public Policy, the new administration would have the clout in congress to roll back portions of the nation’s landmark energy reforms that opened its oil fields to foreign investment.

Lopez Obrador, who takes office on Dec. 1, handily won Mexico’s presidential election in part by promising sweeping changes to Mexico’s energy industry. One of his aims is to have the state-owned oil company, known as Pemex, select partners instead of having them chosen in auctions run by Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH).

 

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Made in Mexico Good Enough for SunPower to Win Tariff Exemption

09/19/2018 – Bloomberg 

SunPower Corp., the second-biggest U.S. solar manufacturer, won’t have to pay import tariffs on the panels it makes in factories outside the country.

The company was granted an exclusion from the U.S. tariffs on imported solar panels President Donald Trump imposed earlier this year, according to a statement Tuesday from San Jose, California-based SunPower. The shares jumped the most in 10 months.

SunPower makes panels mostly in Mexico and Malaysia, and had argued that its products don’t pose the same threat to U.S. manufacturers as the Chinese producers that dominate the industry with lower-cost, less-efficient products. Avoiding the 30 percent duty will give the company an advantage over rivals that have to incorporate it into their pricing.

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Mexico’s next government starts oil contract reviews with Talos-led deal

09/19/2018 – Reuters

Mexico’s incoming government has begun its promised review of oil contracts, starting with a major project won by a consortium led by U.S.-based Talos Energy, the country’s next energy minister said.

Set to become Mexico’s first leftist leader in modern history when he takes office in December, President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador vowed during the campaign to review all oil contracts awarded under his predecessor for signs of corruption.

He won a landslide election victory in July.

Officials with Talos Energy, which also holds a 45 percent stake, and Premier Oil, which has 10 percent, did not respond by Tuesday to requests for comment.

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Mexico Stops Hotel Project at Sea Turtle Nesting Beach

09/18/2018 – The New York Times

Environmental authorities have denied permits for a proposed hotel near one of Mexico’s most important sea turtle nesting beaches on the Caribbean.

The 520-room hotel project would have erected 23 buildings and an artificial lake on property just inland from the Xcacel beach, north of the resort of Tulum.

The federal Environment Department said in statement late Monday the project could threaten Xcacel, and called it “the site with the largest observed nesting of sea turtles on the entire Yucatan Peninsula.”

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Oil firm partially returns area won in Mexico energy reform auction

09/14/2018 – Reuters

Consorcio Petrolero 5M del Golfo, a small energy firm operating in Mexico, has returned one-third of an onshore area won in a 2015 auction, the country’s oil regulator said on Thursday, citing studies showing limited potential for production.

Companies operating in Mexico have so far returned all or part of three oil and gas areas mostly awarded during early auctions of the country’s flagship energy reform because of similar reasons, as well as high taxes and development program demands. This has cast doubt on the sustainability of some projects in the reform intended to open the industry to foreign investors.

The partial return of the 172-square-kilometer area, which includes the Benavides and Primavera fields in the Burgos basin in Northern Mexico, was approved this week by the National Hydrocarbon Commision (CNH), the regulator said in a statement.
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