Page 7 - LatAmOil Week 32 2021

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

Zama is in the southern Gulf of Mexico offshore Tabasco (Image: Premier Oil)
Mexico’s Secretariat of Energy (SENER) government’s decision.
appointed Pemex to serve as the new operator Zama is believed to hold nearly 700mn
of the Zama field in early July, just a few days barrels of oil in recoverable reserves. Talos dis-
after the NOC submitted a letter lobbying for the covered the field in 2017; at the time, it was the
right to lead the project. first major find made by a private or foreign oil
It did so after concluding that Talos and its company in Mexico since that country’s govern-
partners in the project had failed to comply with ment adopted major reforms in the oil sector,
an order to strike a deal with Pemex on the uni- thereby ending Pemex’s 75-year-old monopoly
tisation of Block 7, the licence area that includes on exploration.
Zama, with the neighbouring Uchukil 0152 The US company has been working at Zama
block assigned to Pemex. in a consortium with Wintershall Dea (Ger-
SENER issued the order in 2020 on the basis many) and Premier Oil (UK). Equity in the
of studies showing that the Asab, Chamak and project is split 35% to Talos,40% to Wintershall
Naquita fields at Uchukil 0152 were part of the and 25% to Premier, which has retained its stake
same reservoir discovered at Zama. Talos has in the field following its merger with Chrysaor
consistently opposed Pemex’s call for unitisa- Holdings, another British company, into a new
tion and has expressed disappointment with the company known as Harbour Energy. ™

BHP approves capex spending

for Trion, Shenzi North projects

AUSTRALIA’S BHP has approved plans to study to help decided whether to proceed with
spend more than $800mn on work at two fields development work at Trion.
in the Gulf of Mexico: Trion and Shenzi North. “The focus of these studies will be on com-
In a statement, BHP said that its board of pletion of the engineering, commercial arrange-
directors had approved plans to allocate $258mn ments and execution planning required to
in capital expenditures at Trion, a deepwater progress to a final investment decision [FID]
field located off the coast of the Mexican state from mid-calendar year 2022,” it explained.
of Tamaulipas. These funds will be used to move Currently, BHP has a 60% stake in AE-0092
the project into the front-end engineering and and AE-0093, the two blocks that encompass
design (FEED) phase, it reported. the Trion field, and also serves as operator of the
This decision clears the way for US-based project. The remaining 40% is held by Mexico’s
McDermott International to begin implement- national oil company (NOC) Pemex.
ing the FEED contract it won from BHP earlier BHP had approved the allocation of another
in 2021. In turn, the statement said, the Austral- $544mn in capex for Shenzi North, an unrelated
ian company will use the results of the FEED site in the US section of the Gulf of Mexico.

Week 32 12•August•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P7