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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (4410)	7/10/2006 7:54:44 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24225

Trouble South of the Border -- Mexico's Oil Production [editor's note, by Prof. Goose] Hit the reddit button above if you are so inclined... In April of this year, Mexico's president Vincente Fox announced a major new discovery in the Gulf of Mexico by the state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). This new field, announced a scant few months before Mexico's national presidential elections, was said to contain a potential URR of 10 Gb (billion barrels) of oil. I had wanted to do a story on PEMEX and Mexican oil production. What was the story? I knew from the discoveries trend that finding a field of this size is now rare, a statistical outlier. So, I waited. On July 5th, I got my answer and my patience was rewarded. The Energy Bulletin, quoting from the Oil & Gas Journal (OGJ) announced Fox-hailed deepwater well a modest gas find HOUSTON -- Noxal-1, a deepwater Gulf of Mexico well trumpeted in March by Mexican President Vicente Fox as being a major oil discovery, appears to be a modest gas find. Speaking on Mar. 14 from the drilling rig in 935 m of water 63 miles off Coatzacoalcos, Fox said the then as-yet-untested well had the potential to produce 10 billion bbl of oil (OGJ, Apr. 17, 2006, p. 35). However, after the well operated by state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos reached a total depth of 4,000 m, the fourth interval tested has flowed 9 MMcfd of gas from a reserve estimated at 245 bcf, said IHS Energy, Houston. This story gives some detail about the current state of Mexican oil production and its possible effects both south of the Rio Grande and here in the United States. There's more... (1175 words) \| Comments (0 new, 16 total) \| Permalink I had followed the story closely that the 2nd biggest oil field in the world and the biggest producer of heavy sour crude, Cantarell, is now in decline, perhaps radical decline. However, I am planning a follow-on story that will explore what is happening there and at Ghawar. Here, we'll concentrate on other aspects of the steadily deteriorating situation in Mexican oil production. As usual, let's get the big picture from the EIA country analysis brief. Mexican Production & Imports -- Click to Enlarge And from that EIA document Mexico is the fifth-largest producer of oil in the world. The country produced an average of 3.78 million barrels per day (bbl/d) of oil during 2005, a 1.3 percent decline from 2004. During the first nine months of 2005, Mexico exported 1.79 million bbl/d of crude oil. Of this amount, 88 percent went to the United States, followed by 11 percent to Europe. Mexico is consistently one of the top three exporters of crude oil to the United States, along with Canada and Saudi Arabia. However, the situation may be going downhill fast. In this shocking statement reported by the Dallas Morning News issued prior to the recent presidential election, Mexico's oil model is under pressure, we learn that The rust staining the storage tanks and distillation towers of the giant Miguel Hidalgo Refinery suggests what the balance sheets for Petróleos Mexicanos confirm: a company hemorrhaging money. At a recent reunion of retired Pemex executives, former chief financial officer Ernesto Marcos recalled, a colleague urged that "the next president be told as soon as possible that we may soon not have enough oil for our own requirements and none for exports." That's an ominous forecast for Mexico's economy and for the United States, which relies on Mexico for 8 percent of its oil. Ominous indeed. In fact, downright scary. more Posted by Dave on Monday July 10, 2006 at 5:20 PM EST theoildrum.com