Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Mar. 4 -- Average output at Mexico's Cantarell oil field will decline by as much as 20% this year as the field matures, a Petroleos Mexicanos executive reported.
Carlos Morales Gil, Pemex exploration and production director, said the state firm will reverse the decline when the company installs new production equipment at the field. The energy ministry has said investment in Cantarell would reach $5 billion this year.
Morales said output at Cantarell will range from 1.2-1.3 million b/d this year, compared with an average of 1.5 million in 2007.
According to figures published by the energy ministry, Cantarell's output had already slipped to 1.27 million b/d in January, down some 230,000 b/d from the 1.6 million b/d in January 2007.
In fourth-quarter 2007 Pemex drilled five new development wells at Cantarell and repaired nine major wells and 10 smaller wells. During first-quarter 2008, the company plans to complete a nitrogen recovery unit in the field.
Despite Cantarell's decline, Morales said the company will produce an average 3.1 million b/d this year, the same as in 2007, as other fields compensate for declines at Cantarell.
Morales acknowledged that the decline in Cantarell's production is forcing Pemex to move into more difficult production zones on land and in deeper waters in the Gulf of Mexico.
Much of the company's new drilling is at the Tertiary Gulf Oil project in the northern states of Veracruz and Puebla, where output rose to 41,000 b/d by yearend 2007. By 2015, Pemex hopes production in the region will rise to nearly 600,000 b/d following investments now pegged at $1.7 billion.
Pemex also hopes to boost output at the Ku-Maloob-Zaap offshore field, in which seven new wells were completed and a new production platform installed by yearend 2007. Pemex also plans to begin construction of the Maloob C drilling platform in early 2008.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
