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International Bulletin Board

Mexico's Looks Back at Past 100 Years

This month's column, dealing with "100 Years of Petroleum Geology in Mexico" -- plus a look at the upcoming AAPG International Conference and Exhibition in Cancun -- is provided by Javier Meneses Rocha, technical program co-chair of the Cancun meeting.

Editor's note: This column is devoted to international items of note to the AAPG.

News items, press releases and other information should be submitted to the EXPLORER/International Bulletin Board, P.O. Box 979, Tulsa, Okla. 74101; telephone – 918-560-2616; fax – 918-560-2684; or e-mail – dfree@aapg.org.

International Bulletin Board Archives

Petroleum geology in Mexico will be celebrating 100 years in 2004 -- and a perfect way to celebrate it is with this year's international technical conference and exhibition, jointly sponsored by the Mexican Association of Petroleum Geologists and AAPG, in the strikingly beautiful resort of Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico.

Mexico's oil industry got its head start in 1904 when a gusher was discovered in the Cerro la Pez well in the municipality of Ebano, San Luis Potosí, in the Tampico Basin. Since then 30 billion barrels of oil and 50 tcf of gas have been produced, and there are still remnant reserves of over 40 billion barrels and 80 tcf.

During the meeting, set Oct. 24-27, attendees will learn more about the gas basins of Mexico:

• Sabinas in Coahuila, which produces from Mesozoic carbonates.
• Burgos in Tamaulipas and Nuevo León, which is an extension to the south of the Rio Grande Tertiary siliciclastics.
• Veracruz in the state of Veracruz, which produces both from Paleogene siliciclastics and Cretaceous limestones.
• The Tertiary siliciclastic embayment of Macuspana, Tabasco, Southern Mexico.
• The shelf of the Gulf of Mexico, which is just beginning to be developed for gas.

With regards to the oil provinces, there will be papers on all major producing basins: Tampico-Misantla (which includes the Poza Rica and Golden Lane fields), and the extremely prolific southern fields, both onshore (Bermudez and Centeno complexes, Jujo-Tecominoacán, etc.) and offshore (featuring the Cantarell Field, currently producing over two million barrels of oil per day.)

For a country with a history of 100 years of exploration and production of oil and gas, many people would assume its industry would be declining -- but through the application of technologies, new business concepts and a focus on new frontiers, production is expanding, enabling Mexico to meet the challenge of providing the inexpensive and secure energy that the North American market requires to meet its growth expectations.

Thus, our meeting theme, "Petroleum Industry in the 21st Century -- Technology, Business and Frontiers," will emphasize how technological advances have strongly contributed to maximize economic recovery of the reservoir, and how the petroleum business has undergone dramatic and extremely exciting changes over the last few years, opening new frontiers and changing paradigms for new opportunities for the petroleum industry into the 21st century.

The conference will offer the perfect opportunity to follow these hot conference theme topics, addressing not only Mexican cases but also worldwide examples about issues such as:

• Full Basin 4-D Modeling.
• Reducing Uncertainty in Deep-Water Reservoir Prediction.
• New Approaches in Carbonate Reservoir Modeling.
• Remote Control of Producing Fields.
• Monetizing Gas Resources.
• New Play Concepts in Mature Basins.
• Two management forums about technology and business will address the present and future of these vital trends of our industry.

Attendees also will have the opportunity to take pre- and post-conference courses and select a field trip following an educational module approach in northern, central or southeastern Mexico.

Make plans to come and spend some quality time with us in the wonderful environs of Cancun, while learning in depth how more and cheaper resources can be found and produced.

The final announcement will be available at the Annual Meeting in Dallas; stop by the Cancun booth in the AAPG Center to register.

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