Mexican industrial conglomerate Alfa will seek next year to enter into joint ventures with national oil company Pemex, particularly in three onshore mature fields, the company's top energy executive said on Friday. The Monterrey-based company will also dramatically ramp up its electricity generation over the next five years in the wake of a major energy sector overhaul, Raul Millares, Alfa's energy director, said in an interview.
"Alfa sees very favourably our ability to develop (more) business here in Mexico in the areas of oil and gas," Millares said. He said Alfa, which is already a significant operator in the prolific Eagle Ford Formation in south Texas, had not ruled out tying up with Pemex in shallow-waters too. In Mexico, Alfa provides oilfield services to Pemex and more recently it launched a joint venture with London-based Petrofac.
Last week, Pemex announced that it will seek partners in three mature onshore fields covering 313 square km and containing nearly 250 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe). The first-ever joint ventures with Pemex, in mature fields, are set to be announced in the first quarter of 2015. "We're more interested or more oriented toward onshore exploration, and that's where we think there are interesting projects to review," he said. Among the 10 joint ventures Pemex is seeking, the heavy oil shallow water Ayatsil-Tekel-Utsil field, located off the coast of Campeche state, contains the largest estimated proven and probable oil reserves at nearly 750 million boe. "We want to analyse it. It's a very big project," said Millares. He added that Alfa "would not rule out" interest in other shallow water opportunities.
Millares said Alfa is also interested in competing for development rights to unconventional oil and gas blocks up for grabs in a so-called Round One tender expected by late 2015. He noted that the company is evaluating geological data in the Tampico-Mistantla basin, Mexico's biggest shale basin.