Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 08 2022

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

Eni brings Miamte MV 34

FPSO on stream at Area 1

ENI (Italy) has begun development operations Despite this early progress, Miztón was
at Area 1, a shallow-water licence area located yielding around 15,000 bpd as of October 2021,
off the coast of Tabasco State in the southern significantly less than the 25,000 bpd Eni had
Gulf of Mexico, using a newbuild floating pro- previously anticipated for that date. The dis-
duction, storage and off-loading (FPSO) unit crepancy led Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons
known as the Miamte MV 34. Commission (CNH) to reject the revised work
The Italian major said in a statement on programme that the Italian major had submit-
February 24 that the FPSO was now handling ted in December and push for a new budget and
crude oil from Miztón, the first oilfield to begin plan. Eni, meanwhile, has said it expects output
production at the block. The vessel arrived in levels ramp up in early 2022.
Mexican waters in early January and was then Area 1 is believed to contain around 2.1bn
connected to a mooring system and subjected barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in place, with
to pre-commissioning and integrated com- crude oil accounting for around 90% of the
missioning activities before launching regular total. ™
operations.
The FPSO is designed to handle 90,000 bar-
rels per day (bpd) of crude oil and 75mn cubic
metres per day of natural gas, the Italian com-
pany said. It will allow the Area 1 project to
achieve full-field development status by 2024,
when the block will also be producing from
platforms at the Amoca and Tecoalli oilfields,
it noted.
According to previous reports, the Miamte
MV 34 was assembled at a shipyard in Singapore
by MODEC, an affiliate of Mitsui (Japan). The
vessel, which is capable of storing 700,000 bar-
rels of oil, was finished last autumn and began
sailing to Mexico on October 27.
The Miztón field has been in production
since June 2019. It came on stream just three and
a half years after Eni secured a licence for Area
1 and seven months after the final investment
decision (FID) on the project. The Miamte MV 34 FPSO arrived in Mexican waters in early January (Image: Eni)

SENER moves to put restrictions on

fuel import permits back into place

MEXICO’S Energy Secretariat (SENER) has by introducing a regulation in December 2020
issued a decree lifting a court ruling that sus- that cut the maximum duration of fuel import
pends the enforcement of a regulation designed permits from 20 years to five and imposed
to make fuel import permits harder to obtain, stricter rules for obtaining permits. But in
in a move that aligns with President Andres March 2021, Judge Juan Pablo Gomez Fierro
Manuel Lopez Obrador’s preference for state- of Mexico’s Second District Court for Admin-
run energy companies. istrative Matters, which specialises in economic
Lopez Obrador’s administration had sought competition, broadcasting and telecommunica-
to give the national oil company (NOC) Pemex tions cases, issued a ruling calling for the decree
an edge over private petroleum product sellers to be suspended.

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 08 24•February•2022