Pemex says it has found oil reserves of up to 500 MMb in southern Mexico with its Navegante-1 wildcat, a Sureste Basin discovery that outgoing President Felipe Calderon hailed as the ‘biggest find’ of petroleum on land in the past decade.
Located around 20 km from Villahermosa, the capital of the southern state of Tabasco, the well was drilled to a total depth of 6,911m. Tested in the Upper Jurassic between 6,584m and TD, the well flowed 1,770 b/d of 45° API oil and 7.3 MMcfg/d.
Future plans include the drilling of two appraisal wells and seismic acquisition that will help determine if the reservoir extends southwards as far as the Antonio Bermudez complex, located in the Tabasco-Chiapas region of southern Mexico, which has between 700 and 1,000 MMboe reserves and is the largest crude producer in southern Mexico.
The significance of the discovery was underlined when Pemex revealed that its oil production had dipped to its lowest level in three months, with crude falling to 2.54 MMbopd. It will be down to Pemex to provide most of the financing for development, even though the Federal government takes a significant share of its revenue, as there remains a constitutional ban on private companies holding exploration and production concessions. However, the inauguration of a new president on 1 December 2012 could lead to reform, but the issue is very politically sensitive.
