Pemex boss: looking to the US and to Asia

09/15/14 Financial Times

Ever pragmatic, the boss of Pemex, Mexico’s revamping state oil company, knows the first barrels of oil extracted from the enticing deepwater prospects in the Gulf of Mexico under the country’s historic energy reform will probably be processed and shipped through existing US infrastructure. But don’t be tempted to think that Pemex is taking its eye off Asia.

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Deep-water drilling is a test for Mexican oil company Pemex

The Washington Post, 01/10/2014

More than 3,000 feet below the waves in the the Gulf of Mexico, with a drill bit wider than a human thigh, Mexico is digging for its future.

The gulf is one of the world’s great largely unexplored reservoirs of oil and gas, industry experts say, but the state-run oil monopoly Pemex so far has lacked the money and technical capacity to extract from its deeper waters. Now that the country has passed legislation opening up its beleaguered oil industry to outsiders for the first time in 75 years, the government is hoping that future partnerships with foreign companies to drill for hard-to-access undersea oil will mean billions of dollars of new revenue.

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Budget Deal Would Open New Areas Of The Gulf Of Mexico For Drilling

The Huffington Post, 12/11/2013

The bipartisan budget deal unveiled Tuesday night includes a provision that would open up new parts of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling.

The proposal includes passage of the U.S.-Mexico Transboundary Hydrocarbon Agreement, which would allow development of oil and gas reserves that cross the international maritime boundary in the Gulf of Mexico. There has been a moratorium in place on drilling in the Western Gap portion of the Gulf since 2000, but it is set to expire at the end of 2013. The agreement included in the budget deal sets standards for both countries to undertake development in this area, and has already won approval from both the Obama administration and Mexico.

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Budget Deal Breaks Logjam on U.S.-Mexico Drilling Pact

National Journal, 12/11/2013

The new Capitol Hill budget plan clears the way for a U.S.-Mexico offshore drilling agreement to proceed, signaling the apparent end of a House-Senate impasse that has stalled implementation of the 2012 accord.

The agreement announced Tuesday evening between Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. has language tucked into it that approves the U.S.-Mexico Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement. The bilateral drilling accord is designed to enable cooperation and legal certainty in the development of oil-and-gas along a maritime boundary in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Politics press as Pemex eyes deep-water partnership

MSNBC, 12/2/2013

In the U.S.-controlled area of the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies extract more than 300,000 barrels of crude per day from deep-water wells. In Mexico’s area: zero.

That statistic is just one of several pushing the Mexican government to embark on an ambitious (not to mention politically treacherous) change to its constitution, which would allow foreign investment in Mexico’s oil industry for the first time in 75 years.

“We have to evolve,” said Carlos Morales, head of the exploration and production for Pemex, short for Petroleos Mexicanos, the country’s government-controlled oil monopoly.

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Oil industry backs US-Mexico drilling bill without Dodd-Frank waiver

The Hill, 10/21/2013

An influential oil industry group is no longer pressing the House to include waivers from part of the Dodd-Frank law in legislation to implement a 2012 U.S.-Mexico offshore drilling accord.

The American Petroleum Institute’s stance could help win enactment of the Senate version of the bill to implement the U.S.-Mexico Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement, which recently passed without opposition and does not provide a Dodd-Frank exemption.

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In sign of energy dilemma, Mexico runs low on natural gas

The Miami Herald, 9/18/2013

Prices for natural gas over the border in Texas are at historic lows, so what happened earlier this month at the Gulf of Mexico port of Altamira, Mexico, might seem to defy market logic.Huge tankers arrived from distant Yemen and Nigeria to offload liquefied natural gas at a price four times the market rate for natural gas in the United States.

At Mexico’s two other liquefied natural gas terminals, on the Pacific coast, the same phenomenon occurs, with expensive liquefied gas arriving from Peru, Indonesia and even Africa. It’s a sign of Mexico’s enormous energy crisis, even as oil remains the mainstay of the country’s economy. Mexico has huge natural-gas reserves, yet those reserves are largely untapped, and the nation is a net importer of the fuel.Abundant supplies of natural gas at low prices lie just across the border, but U.S.-Mexico pipelines are already handling all they can.

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