Petroleos Mexicanos Awards Consortium of Monclova Pirineos Gas and Alfa SAB de CV’ Unit, and Schlumberger NV Jointly With Petrofac Limited Contracts To Drill Mature Oil Fields-Reuters

Reuters reported that Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) announced that it has awarded four contracts to drill mature oil fields in the second round of bidding to open up the country's nationalized oil industry to more private investment. More than a dozen companies or consortia were in the running for the contracts and Pemex chose the winners based on who could produce the most oil at the lowest cost per barrel. The goal is to increase crude output at the fields by around 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the 13,000 bpd they are pumping today. Auction awarded contracts to drill four new onshore areas, but auctions for two offshore areas Atun and Arenque offshore were unsuccessful. Egyptian company Cheiron Holdings Ltd won the contract for the Altamira area in Tamaulipas. The Panuco area in Veracruz went to a joint bid from oil services company Schlumberger and British drilling firm Petrofac. Petrofac said the contract, which runs for 30 years, should be signed by August 2012 and operations at the area could begin in 2013. The companies committed USD 17.5 million in investment at the Panuco fields for the first two years. A consortium of Monclova Pirineos Gas, a company with Venezuelan and Colombian capital, and a unit of Mexico's Alfa won contracts for the Tierra Blanca and San Andres areas, both in Veracruz. Pemex has plans for a third and fourth round of contracts this year at the geologically complicated Chicontepec project and deep water areas in the Gulf of Mexico.