French Company CGV Wins Mexican Deep-sea Oil Exploration Contract
The Mexican state oil company (Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex for short) said on the 7th that the French oilfield services group geophysical company CGG Veritas (or CGV for short) won a five-year agreement with Pemex to conduct unfinished operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Carry out oil exploration in developed sea areas.
Pemex has increased energy exploration in recent years to access more new oil reserves and stabilize production, which has fallen 25% since peaking in 2004. The contract with CGV includes mapping three-dimensional geological maps of 75,000 square kilometers of sea area to identify drilling sites. This is the deepest sea in Mexico, and Pemex is going to start exploring for oil in this unexplored sea.
In the week of August 31, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said that Mexico needs more legal reforms to develop deep-water oil fields as soon as possible. Mexico revised its energy law in 2008 to give Pemex more autonomy and make it easier to hire foreign oil companies as contractors.
Moreover, Pemex cannot form challenging and costly technology-based joint ventures. International oil companies often form alliances to undertake projects in deepwater waters to spread investment costs and the risk of drilling failure.
During the legal adjustment process, Pemex had already begun oil exploration. The company has drilled 10 wells in more than 1,640 feet of water and discovered significant reserves of crude oil and natural gas. The company expects first production from deepwater fields in 2015 due to long-term operations away from shore.