Mexico’s Energy Minister has said that the country will consider its much-hyped deep-water oilfield rights auctions a success if just four of 10 available blocks are awarded, according to Reuters.
The auctions, scheduled for Monday (December 5), have attracted big-name foreign players including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and Total.
This past Monday the country’s energy regulator CNH said 17 companies have been deemed pre-qualified to bid, some as consortiums.
The minister, Pedro Joaquin Coldwell, said the Mexican authorities would “be very satisfied” if four blocks are awarded.
Coldwell was not including in his calculations the farm-out of rights to the resource-rich Trion field, which will have an auction all to itself, also on Monday, just to determine which firm will partner state oil firm Pemex in its development.
The Trion field in the Perdido Fold Belt near the maritime border with the US is believed to contain as much as $11bn worth of hydrocarbons.
Since 2013 Mexico has been enacting energy reforms which primarily entail taking away Pemex’s seven-decade-old monopoly on domestic E&P and inviting outsider companies to enter the marketplace as joint venture partners in a bid to boost flagging production numbers.
