Mexican scientists have detected what could be a large underground deposit of methane gas in the Gulf of California off the north-west coast of Mexico, local officials said on Friday.
Alfredo Canas, economics consultant for the local government in the town of Ensenada, said the gas basin - which scientists said still had to be verified - could be big enough to produce 145 million cubic meters of gas per day.
Mexico now produces around 4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas per day in total, much of it from gas fields in the north-east, near Tamaulipas.
Canas said the discovery was made by scientists at the Center for Scientific Investigation and Further Education in Ensenada (CICESE).
"There is methane gas in the Gulf of California, but we still have to do more studies to establish the amount and what form it's in. This is nothing new for the scientific community, there are many sedimentary gas basins in this zone," said Arturo Martin Barajas, a scientist at CICESE.
State oil and gas monopoly Pemex said it has no exploration activities in the Gulf of California - which divides the mainland and the Baja California peninsula - and had no information about the find.
"We have nothing in that area," a company spokeswoman said.
A source at Pemex's gas division also said he knew nothing about the find of methane, the main component of natural gas.
If confirmed by Pemex - which has exclusive rights to explore Mexican oil and gas deposits - the deposit could give fuel to environmentalists and opposition groups fighting plans for liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals in Baja California.
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