Companies line up for Trion stake
Wednesday 7 September 2016
Mexico has seen nine companies request pre-qualification to bid for a stake in Pemex's flagship Trion discovery in the deep-water Perdido fold-belt, and expects one more to do the same by a deadline this week, a key CNH official said.
The 10 companies that have data room access include US independent Anadarko, Australia's BHP Billiton, UK supermajor BP, US supermajors Chevron and ExxonMobil, Japan's Inpex and Mitsubishi, European supermajors Shell and Total, and Malaysia's Petronas, according to government data.
Juan Carlos Zepeda Molina, president of the country's National Hydrocarbons Commission, was pleased with the level of interest.
"It's a good number," he said on the sidelines of an AAPG/SEG industry event in Cancun.
There had been some concern over turnout in the so-called Pemex farm-out process, for which companies had expressed interest but had been slow to request prequalification, causing the CNH to push back a deadline by about a week until 8 September to give companies more time to evaluate information.
Mexico is gearing up for its first-ever tenders this December on deep-water acreage, the final and most highly anticipated phase of its first multiphase bid round to open the industry to private participation following reforms to end the nearly 80-year monopoly of state oil company Pemex.
The latest farm-out update comes as progress continues on a separate but parallel process for open bidding on 10 deep-water blocks in the northern Perdido fold-belt and southern Salina del Istmo basin.
That deep-water process attracted many of the same companies but brought in a total of 26 contenders, including 16 operators and 10 financial partners.
Bids for both deep-water tracts will be opened on 5 December.
The 2012 Trion discovery, estimated to contain about 485 million barrels of possible reserves, is expected to require some $11 billion in investments over its lifetime.
Pemex, which has little experience in developing deep-water fields, has been frank about its desire to bring in experienced, high-profile partners to help, given its limited budget to tackle the enormous task. Under the farm-out agreement it would retain a 45% stake.
Due to Mexican law, partners must be selected by an open public bid process rather than direct negotiations.
Already-discovered deep-water fields also represent the earliest possibility for Pemex to add major new production that has been in decline for about a decade as giant fields such as Cantarell have aged.
Many of the terms and qualification requirements for the deep-water farm-out are expected to be “analogous” to already-announced details on the 10 open blocks, with a licence-style contract.
The minimum work programme includes two delineation wells, one exploration well and acquisition of 1250 square kilometres of wide-azimuth seismic.