Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 49 2019

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Pemex announces major discovery at Quesqui field in Tabasco
MEXICO’S national oil company (NOC) has discovered a sizeable onshore deposit of crude oil and natural gas in the state of Tabasco.
In a statement, government-owned Pemex said it had found the new site, known as Quesqui, in May of this year year. Since then, it said, company experts have determined that the field contains around 500mn barrels of oil in proven, probable and possible (3P) reserves.
“With the analysis of information provided by this well and seismic data in the area, we can confirm today the existence of a giant deposit equivalent to 500mn barrels of crude oil in a 3P reserve,” said Octavio Romero Oropeza, Pemex’s CEO.
The NOC indicated that it hoped to begin development work at Quesqui in the near future. Next year, it noted, the site will yield 69,000 bar- rels per day (bpd) of oil, as well as 300mn cubic feet (8.496mn cubic metres) of gas.
Pemex described the new field as its largest discovery in three decades, and Romero said at a press conference attended by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on December 9 that his company might have to revise the reserve estimate upward. The NOC is currently drilling a delineation well, and the results from this initiative could show that Quesqui holds as much as 700mn barrels, he told reporters.
Romero went on to say that the find was likely to be a boon for his company, which has been struggling in the face of declining produc- tion, a heavy debt burden and a credit rating downgrade earlier this year. “When a field has 500mn barrels of reserves, it’s considered a giant field,” he remarked. “Of course, for the ratings
agencies this is good news regarding Pemex.” His remarks were met with scepticism by Pablo Medina, the vice-president of the Welli- gence Energy Analytics consultancy. Medina pointed out that Quesqui did not appear to be nearly as impressive a find as Ixachi, an onshore field discovered in Veracruz in 2017. (Pemex raised its reserve estimate for this site nearly three-fold last year, saying that Ixachi held 1.3bn barrels of oil.) He also speculated that the NOC might not have enough data to confirm its esti-
mate of the new deposit’s reserves. “Productivity-wise, it seems to be smaller
than Ixachi,” Medina told Bloomberg earlier this week. “There hasn’t been a development plan submitted for it, so it’s too early to talk about reservesbasedoffonesinglewell.”
He added: “It is great news for Pemex to continue having discoveries. However, blowing them out of proportion is something we’ve seen happen in every government administration.”™
Mexico’s president (centre) hails the discovery in Tabasco (Photo: Mexico News)
COLOMBIA
Ecopetrol, Frontera and Amerisur among winners in Colombia licensing round
CANADA’S Parex Resources, Colombia’s Eco- petrol and its subsidiary Hocol were among the companies to be awarded contracts to operate blocks in Colombia’s latest oil and gas auction round on December 5, as the Latin American nation tried to boost its stagnant oil and gas sector.
Gran Tierra Energy and Parex were awarded two contracts each, while CNE Oil and Gas was awarded three contracts, the national
hydrocarbons agency ANH said. Meanwhile Ecopetrol, Hocol, Canada’s Frontera Energy and Amerisur Re-sources were all awarded one con- tract each, after failing to receive counter-offers for their initial bids.
Additionally, a consortium consisting of Ecopetrol and Parex was awarded one contract.
Other consortia formed by Hocol and Geopark
and by La Luna and Captiva also won one con-
tract each. 
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 49 12•December•2019