Pemex is focused on continuing with its high-profile program of deepwater drilling in the Mexican sector of the Gulf, despite the ending of its state monopoly.

Under the much-publicised Round Zero proposals, the company is of course facing major changes to its portfolio after nominating its preferred areas of future operations in the GoM and onshore. What is left will be up for grabs for the growing likely queue of new players wanting to compete in the country’s changed upstream industry. A decision on what Pemex can keep and what must go is expected before the end of September.

But according to Gustavo Hernández, acting director of Exploration and Production for Pemex, deepwater drilling remains at the company’s core as the Round Zero process goes on. “We have four deepwater rigs under contract and we have 5-year contracts for these,” he said during a conference call on Round Zero.

Responding to a question on the company’s likely future deepwater drilling activity – there was concern that it would be put on hold until the government’s decisions were known – Hernandez pointed out that the first of these rigs came on contract in 2011, with the last arriving in 2013, and due to complete its existing term in 2018.

“We have guaranteed activities for these drilling rigs. These rigs’ main objective is to assess deepwater basins and they are focused on exploration wells rather than development wells,” he explained.

“With the submission of Pemex’s proposals to the Ministry of Energy, we consider that we will have the chance to present to the Ministry field development plans for developing the Perdido area where we already have discoveries, and, we believe, in future [licensing] rounds the Ministry will be including further areas on which additional drilling activity will be needed, in some of the areas where Pemex is not working right now,” he confirmed.

With the four drilling rigs, the company would have “a strong presence in deepwater basins in exploration,” he added, saying that if it needed additional capacity to drill exploration or development wells, it had the required units.

Pemex completed a major submission to the country’s Ministry of Energy at the end of March nominating those areas it wanted to retain control of, including all the deepwater fields and prospects it has drilled on so far, where it says it has reduced the geological risk. It has also nominated all its profitable producing fields to provide ongoing financial stability, as well as areas providing exploration opportunities.

It has targeted in particular the deepwater and unconventional basins – which represent 70% of Mexico’s prospective resources. The company is expected to enter into several partnerships with established majors for the more complex deepwater projects it will have on its development schedule, especially in the Perdido area.

By September this year the Energy Ministry is scheduled to deliver its decision on the areas Pemex is allowed to hold onto. “Pemex is requesting 31% of the total prospective resources – which amounts to 112.8 Bboe. From that we are requesting 34.5 Bbbl. There is still a lot of opportunities for other players in other rounds after Round Zero, to come in and explore and convert those prospective resources – both conventional and unconventional – of about 78.3 Bbbl,” said Hernandez.

During its Round Zero presentation, Pemex displayed one graph depicting major production growth areas globally, showing that up to 13.6 MMboe/d is forecast to come from deepwater globally by 2020 out of a total of 47 MMboe/d that year.

“Deepwater has been the focus of all the producing oil companies – NOCs and IOCs. It is the reason why Pemex is participating in these deepwater basins in Mexico,” said Hernandez.

Offshore