German oil and gas company Wintershall Dea has signed an agreement with Hokchi Energy, the Mexican subsidiary of Pan American Energy, to acquire a 37% non-operating, participating interest in the Hokchi Block, with a conditional option to increase its participation to 40% at a later stage. With this acquisition, Wintershall Dea will become the second-largest interest holder in the Hokchi Block after operator Hokchi Energy.
The shallow-water block was developed as a subsea tie-back to two offshore platforms, Satellite and Central, and was brought on stream in May 2020.
The well stream is piped 24 km from the two offshore platforms to an onshore processing facility, where oil and gas is separated and treated for sale to the Mexican state oil company Pemex.
The block currently produces around 26,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day with a planned ramp-up to a gross production of 37,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2023.
Martin Jungbluth, Managing Director of Wintershall Dea in Mexico, underlines the importance of this new asset: “The Hokchi Block is located in the Sureste Basin, where we already have a strong portfolio of promising licences and which is therefore familiar to us. It’s near our Zama, Polok and Chinwol discoveries as well as our own operated exploration block 30. We are looking forward to contributing our expertise and working together with the operator to efficiently and safely produce the Hokchi Block.”
In Mexico, Wintershall Dea and Hokchi Energy are already partners in Block 2, located in the southeast of the Gulf of Mexico.
The transaction is subject to obtaining government approvals, including from Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Agency and antitrust agency, and is expected to be closed before the end of the first quarter 2023.
