Supremus-1 and Trion-1 open Pemex new horizon

The Mexican national oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) made two major discoveries in a month in the Perdido Fold Belt deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico.

In August 2012, Trion-1, first Pemex’s successful well was drilled only 39 kilometers from the US territorial waters by 2,540 meters deepwater depth on the Mexican side of the Perdido Fold Belt.

In September 2012, Supremus-1 well hit crude oil reservoir even deeper by 2,900 meters deepwater depth and 4,000 meters total depth with the help of the West Pegasus deepwater sixth-generation drilling rig chartered to Seadrill.

Lying across the USA and Mexican border, the Perdido Fold Belt basin is located 320 kilometers southern offshore Texas Gulf Coast and 250 kilometers from Matamoros, at the US border.

On the US side of this prolific Perdido Fold Belt, international oil companies such as BP, Chevron, Shell, Statoil, are already producing oil massively and planning expansions with the world largest SPAR platform (Single Point of Anchor Reservoir).

In Trion-1 discovery, the exploration indicates the first estimations of the reserves between 250 and 500 million barrels of crude oil while in Surpemus-1 they are closer to 125 million barrels.

If Pemex confirms these figures with further appraisal wells, the Perdido Fold Belt may contain up to 10 billion barrels of crude oil recoverable reserves.

All together, Pemex estimates its untapped reserves in the Gulf of Mexico to 27 billion barrels.

In addition the quality of the crude oil measured in Trion-1 and Supremus-1 classifies it as the most valuable light crude.

 Together, Triton-1 and Supremus-1 unveil in Perdido Fold Belt the largest Pemex’s oil discovery since the giant Cantarell oil field in 1976.

After thirty years of prolific production, Cantarell started to decline so that in the years 2006, Pemex restitution rate of proven reserves, indicating the capacity of the company to maintain its proven reserves, had come down as low as 40%.

Pemex intends to set Prion in production in five years

Despite the depletion of Cantarell, Pemex intends to increase the production in the Gulf of Mexico by one third.

In Trion-1, Pemex is already planning to enter production phase by 2017.

The develop this field, Pemex envisages two options:

 – First option is to tie Trion-1 production in the existing subsea production system and pipeline in place on the US side.

 – Second option is to install its own floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, and to ship the crude either ways to Mexican or US refineries.

Anticipating the development of the oil and gas fields in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, half way between USA and Mexico, the two countries signed in February 2012 a legal framework to define taxation rules and incentives for US companies to cooperate with Pemex in developing Mexican deepwater oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to this agreement, the production of crude oil on the Mexican side, could be directly exported to US while Pemex would take fees on it anyway.

To speed up the development of the Perdido Fold Belt, Pemex will lead on its own the production in Trion but may open exploration and production in other areas to international oil companies

Since 2008, the Mexican Congress allowed Pemex to sign integrated services contracts with international oil companies to facilitate foreign investments in Mexico.

Pemex would organize the next round of services contracts in November for the development of the onshore area of Chicontepec.

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