Mexico's Pemex seeks 5 shallow water drilling rigs

MEXICO CITY, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Mexico's state oil company Pemex has tendered for five shallow water drilling rigs to help maintain production capacity at its existing offshore oil production facilities, the company said on Wednesday.

Pemex said it plans to use the rigs for drilling and well completion work at its Cantarell and Ku Maloob Zaap heavy oil fields and the Sihil light oil field.

Mexico is counting on new production from the Ku Maloob Zaap complex as well as Sihil to counter an expected 25 percent drop in production from Cantarell through the end of 2009.

Pemex is drilling new wells along the edges of the Cantarell field in an effort to slow the decline, upstream chief Carlos Morales said in an interview last week.

The company also hopes to ramp up output from the Sihil light oil field, which lies beneath Cantarell, to 120,000 bpd in 2009.

Bids for the contracts are due on Feb. 2. Pemex aims to begin the drilling work in mid-2009.

Pemex said on Tuesday it awarded contracts for three shallow water drilling rigs to units of Ensco International Inc (ESV.N) and Noble Corp (NE.N). (Reporting by Robert Campbell)