MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican state oil monopoly Pemex should meet a goal to lift its 2006 reserves replacement rate to 75 percent with an exploration budget of $1.5 billion, Chief Financial Officer Juan Jose Suarez said on Friday.
"We expect to spend around $1.5 billion (on exploration)," Suarez told the Reuters Latin America Investment Summit in Mexico City, which "...should be sufficient for this goal."
Pemex, which is battling to lift the rate at which it replaces extracted oil and gas with new finds to the industry ideal of 100 percent, ended 2005 with a total reserves replacement rate of 59 percent.
Suarez said investment in exploration this year should also lift the replacement rate for proved reserves to around 30 percent, up from 26 percent at the end of 2005.
Mexico is gunning to reach 100 percent in replacement of total reserves (proved plus probable plus possible reserves) in 2010, although analysts worry it lacks the funds and technology to uncover new oil deposits, which lie mainly in offshore wells in very deep water.
President Vicente Fox announced the 2006 target of 75 percent earlier this month, as Mexico celebrated 68 years since it expropriated its oil industry and kicked out foreign firms.
Pemex is hoping results from its first deepwater test well, Noxal, will confirm some of the 54 billion barrels of possible crude oil that seismic studies have indicated lie in deepwater deposits in the Gulf of Mexico.
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