Mexico's energy ministry announced that the country expects to attract $50.5 billion in new private and foreign investment by 2018 as part of a historic oil sector opening next year that will begin with a first round of contracts.
The Round One tender will offer up 169 separate exploration and extraction blocks and cover a total of 28,500 square kilometers.
A Round Zero allocation also unveiled on Wednesday provides Mexican oil company Pemex with a new, slimmed-down portfolio of assets to exploit on its own or enter into first-ever joint ventures with international oil majors such as Chevron Corp and BP Plc.
Following are the main elements of Mexico's Round Zero allocation to Pemex, and next year's Round One tender:
ROUND ZERO
- National oil company Pemex was assigned 83 percent of the country's probable and possible (2P) oil reserves, or 100 percent of its 2P request from March.
- Pemex was assigned 21 percent of the country's prospective resources, versus the 31 percent the company had asked for.
- Pemex's Round Zero allocation equals 20.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and covers around 90,000 square kilometers.
- It provides Pemex with proven reserves of 12.45 billion boe.
- It also provides Pemex with 3.01 billion boe of prospective resources in the deep water Perdido Fold Belt which straddles the U.S.-Mexico maritime border in the Gulf of Mexico.
- It gives Pemex with 1.82 billion boe of prospective resources in the deep water Holok and Han fields.
- It also provides Pemex with 425 million boe of proven and probable reserves in the onshore Burgos and Sabinas fields in northern Mexico.
- The allocation hands Pemex 3.82 billion boe of proven and probable reserves in the Ebano-Panuco-Faja de Oro-Chicontepec fields.
- It also gives Pemex additional onshore proven and probable resources of 4.58 billion boe, and 5.91 billion boe of prospective resources in southeastern Veracruz and Campeche states.
- The allocation provides Pemex with 11.37 billion boe in proven and probable reserves and 7.47 billion boe of prospective resources in shallow water and extra heavy crude fields.
ROUND ONE
- The Round One tender, set for next year, will offer foreign and private oil companies the rights to 109 fields covering 14.61 billion boe in prospective resources.
- It will be organized by the national hydrocarbons commission, Mexico's newly empowered upstream regulator, and will launch as early as May, but no later than September of 2015.
- Round One will offer foreign and private oil companies rights to 60 fields covering 3.78 billion boe in proven and probable reserves.
- The energy ministry expects Round One to attract $50.5 billion by 2018, or about $12.63 billion in new annual investment.
- Round One will offer foreign and private oil companies the rights to bid on deep water acreage in the southern portion of Mexico's territorial waters in the Gulf equivalent to 3.22 billion boe in prospective resources.
- It will offer foreign and private oil companies the rights to bid on 8.93 billion boe of prospective resources and 2.68 billion boe of proven and probable reserves in the onshore Chicontepec basin, as well as other nearby unconventional fields.
- It will also offer foreign and private oil companies the rights to bid on 1.20 billion boe of proven and probable reserves and 724 million boe of prospective resources in onshore, shallow water and heavy oil fields.
- Round One will allow foreign and private oil companies the rights to bid on 142 million boe in prospective resources in unconventional natural gas fields in the Sabinas basin.
