Mexico: BHP Billiton Expects Drilling of First New Trion Well to Begin in October
Friday 16 February 2018
Drilling of the first new exploration well in BHP Billiton’s deepwater Trion project will begin in October, part of a plan approved by Mexican regulators on Thursday that also revised downward the project’s estimated oil and gas resources.
Australian mining and oil giant BHP Billiton won the rights to operate Trion in late 2016, taking a 60 percent stake in the project valued at some $11 billion, while Mexico’s state-owned oil company Pemex holds the remaining 40 percent. The project marked the first-ever deepwater joint venture partnership for Mexico’s newly opened oil sector following a constitutional energy overhaul in 2013.
The new exploration well is part of a minimum work program set out in Trion’s 35-year license contract, and the plan sets out three potential well locations, all west of the two original Trion wells previously drilled by Pemex in 2012 and 2014.
BHP Billiton expects the new well to be drilled between October 2018 and January of 2019.
Trion, located some 8,430 feet (2,570 meters) below the surface, lies just south of the U.S.-Mexico maritime border in the Gulf of Mexico’s Perdido Fold Belt. The exploration plan also calls for a range of geological studies as well as the acquisition and processing of new three-dimensional seismic data.