UPDATE 2-Mexico sees deepwater oil production from 2012
(Updates with quotes, detail, byline)
CUIDAD DEL CARMEN, Mexico, March 1 (Reuters) - Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex, under pressure to increase its energy output, said on Thursday it expects to begin producing oil from deepwater wells from around 2012.
"We will start to produce oil in deepwater wells in 2012, 2013 or 2014, within seven years," Pemex's head of exploration and production, Carlos Morales, told Reuters.
Pemex, which needs deepwater projects to compensate for falling yields at its huge but declining Cantarell field, has confirmed deepwater oil deposits with its exploratory wells like Noxal, Lakach and Tabscob.
Pemex -- the world's No. 5 oil producer by volume and a top three supplier to the United States -- aims to drill some 50 to 60 more exploratory wells in deep water between now and 2012, Morales told a briefing with reporters.
The roughly 10,000 sq-metre area Pemex is currently studying -- at water depths of 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) and 1,000 metres of rock -- could contain 4 billion barrels of oil, early tests indicate, Pemex geophysicist Arturo Soto said.
Morales said that Pemex hoped to give a firm estimate for the amount of oil in the area it is currently working on in a couple of months.
"This (deepwater production) is an important part of our future. This is going to dominate over the next 30 years," Morales added.
Morales said the total area within the Gulf of Mexico with deepwater oil is as large as 500,000 sq metres, underscoring the area's huge potential.
Pemex estimates there could be as much as 29 billion barrels of oil in deepwater far below the Gulf of Mexico seabed, citing early tests.
Morales is working on the assumption that Pemex will be working alone, rather with a partner, despite the high cost and technological challenges of working in deepwater.
President Felipe Calderon's government is keen to debate ways to enable Pemex to form partnerships with foreign companies which could speed up its entry into deepwater.
But Calderon faces opposition from leftist lawmakers who oppose any change to a law banning foreign companies exploring for, or producing, Mexican oil and gas.
