Mexico to open bids for deepwater acreage next week

Mexico will next week hold the opening of bids for awarding its deepwater oil and gas exploration acreage as part of the of the Fourth Tender of Round 2.

The event, scheduled for Wednesday, January 31, 2018, involves the tender of 29 offshore contractual areas, tendered as license contracts. The areas are located within the oil provinces of Perdido, Mexican Cordilleras and the Salina Basin.

The national oil and gas regulator Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos (CNH) on Thursday released a list of the companies that have qualified for bidding in the round.

Nine companies will bid individually. Also, seventeen consortia will take part in the round. In Total, 26 bidders from 16 countries will take part.

Individual bidders will be BHP Billiton, CNOOC, ExxonMobil, Noble Energy, Pemex, Petronas, Shell, Statoil, and Total. Also, nineteen companies will take part grouped as 17 consortia.

The CNH will live stream the event.

Mexico’s deepwater reserves have yet to be uncovered, as the country’s energy sector had been under a Pemex-run monopoly for decades, and Pemex did not have the technology to tap the deepwater fields.

An energy reform was introduced in 2013, ending the decades long monopoly, opening the country’s energy the sector for private investment and competition. According to a recent report by Subsea UK, since the introduction of the reform, over 60 new national and international companies were awarded contracts for E&P in the Gulf of Mexico.

Back in 2014, BBVA said the reform could increase Mexico’s foreign direct investment inflows by $20bn to $30bn per year (1.5% to 2.3% of GDP).

Offshore Energy Today Staff