The Mexican state oil company Pemex plans to extract from Maloob, Campeche, its main producing field555.5 million barrels of crude oil before the end of its useful life in the next 10 years, according to a modification to its development plan approved Thursday by the country’s oil sector regulator.
Maloob currently produces about 294 thousand barrels per day (bpd) of heavy oilbut it is a mature field in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, in the decline stage.
Its peak crude oil production occurred in 2018, when it pumped an average of 432,200 bpdaccording to data from the regulator, the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH).
Pemex now intends extract 55.10 million more barrels of crude oil from Maloobaccording to changes to the development plan approved by the CNH on Thursday.
However, The oil company did not reach the estimated production in that initial plan and extracted 72.29 million barrels less than scheduled, according to data presented by the regulator in a session broadcast on the internet.
Maloob, along with the fields Ku and Zaap form the most important block of Pemex in shallow waters. Together they produce 495,100 bpd of oil, according to CNH data. Pemex currently pumps about 1.6 million bpd of crude oil.
To extract the remaining Maloob crude oil, Pemex said which will allocate 14,166 million dollars in the period: 9.8 billion dollars for investment and the rest for operating expenses, the regulator said.
Pemex, one of the most indebted oil companies in the world, has faced problems to keep its production stable of crude oil in recent years. The company expects to pump around two million bpd by the end of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government, in the third quarter of 2024.
PMA
