The Mexican oil horizon for the next decade is on hold. Despite the push that the López Obrador Government has given to the oil parastatal, Pemex, in the last six years through direct capitalizations of almost a trillion pesos, the country’s oil reserves report a growth of 0.28% in a anus. The report from the National Hydrocarbons Commission shows that the total hydrocarbon reserves as of January 1, 2024 in Mexico amounted to 23,146 million barrels of crude oil equivalent, a marginal increase compared to the 23,081 million registered in 2023. “It is the second consecutive year in which an upward trend is observed and the trend of decline in reserves that occurred from 2013 to 2022 is reversed,” said Alan Barkley, director of Reserves at the CNH, in the presentation of the report.
The proven oil reserves, called 1P,—with a 90% chance of being extracted—amount to 8,383 million barrels of crude oil equivalent, which represents a growth of 2.7% compared to 2023. With a production rate of 961 million of barrels annually, this volume of reserves will last about 8.7 years, a drop compared to the 8.9 years calculated the previous year, according to CNH forecasts. “The most important thing is that the recovery occurs in the proven reserves, which are the most real and for the country it is important to have this information to be able to make a realistic policy,” commented Commissioner José Alfonso Pascual, during the presentation of the report. . According to this commissioner’s calculations, if crude oil extraction had a rate of two million barrels per day, the sum of all these reserves would guarantee the oil future for the next three decades.
In a second place, 2P reserves, which add up to proven reserves plus probable reserves – with a commercialization feasibility of 50% – amount to 15,530 million barrels of oil, with an increase of 2.6% compared to the previous year. The CNH detailed that, in the last 12 months, it has been possible to recategorize probable and possible reserves into more certain proven reserves. By product, oil reserves totaled 16,386 million barrels and natural gas reserves were 34,858 billion cubic feet.
Mexico is a country of mature oil fields. The report from the regulatory body reported that at this time there are 793 oil fields with reserves, of which 86% percent are operated by Pemex and 14% by private firms. In 2023, commercial discovery was reported in 12 fields, of which a dozen are new: Xale, Tentok, Etkal-NE, Techiaktli, Bakte, Cibix-401EXP, Platao, Yawa, Obba, Macuil-SE. Two new deposits were incorporated in the Vernet field and the Macuil field was previously discovered, without, at the time, due to contingencies, being incorporated into the consolidation of reserves.
Héctor Moreira, commissioner of the CNH, reflected that, although Mexico has more than 700 fields, only 10 concentrate production and within them, the Trión field is the largest of all in reserves under review. “It’s very interesting to see how highly concentrated our industry is in a very small number of fields,” he said. Campeche, Veracruz and Tabasco concentrate 87% of these resources.
The parastatal Pemex and private companies currently extract 1.8 million barrels of oil per day, however, last April the most indebted oil company in the world with a liability of 110 billion dollars, reported a drop in its production, reaching 1 .4 million barrels of crude oil per day, its worst level in 45 years. The productive debacle of the parastatal occurred at the same time as the explosion on its Akal-B marine platform, in Campeche
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