Mexico's Pemex sees more tie-ups after first joint venture

Fresh off a historic tie-up with Australia's BHP Billiton Plc, Pemex [PEMX.UL] is aiming for more than five additional joint ventures with other major producers over the next two years, the chief executive officer of the Mexican state oil firm said on Monday.

BHP was chosen as Pemex's partner in its Trion deep water Gulf project earlier on Monday, the first time the ailing Mexican oil firm will jointly share the risks and rewards of a potentially lucrative development.

Pemex already plans four shallow water and onshore tie-ups next year, and Pemex CEO Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya hopes at least five more will follow by 2018.

"We have other fields in deep waters and may be able to do them soon," he added, declining to specify how soon or which fields.

Hailing the Trion deal as a "milestone" for Mexico, Gonzalez defended the pursuit of costly and difficult deep water projects since the company can now rely on partners that have more experience and more capacity to invest in new developments.

Before a 2013 constitutional energy reform that opened the industry to private producers, Pemex had an oil and gas monopoly for Mexico's ample onshore and offshore basins.

While oil export revenues have funded as much as 40 percent of the government's budget in the past, a two-year slump in oil prices have cut that contribution to less than a fifth today.

Speaking just outside his wood-paneled office on the 43rd floor of Pemex's Mexico City headquarters, Gonzalez said Pemex needed to have a mix of production assets.

"One should look to diversify the portfolio of assets that we have, and not having any assets in deep waters is obviously not diversified. We have a lot to learn. Pemex has no experience in the production of deep water fields," he said, adding BHP is one of the biggest producer in the Gulf's U.S. deep waters.

The Harvard-educated Gonzalez said he has had "informal conversations" with operators on the U.S. side about using existing transportation and processing infrastructure.

"We have seen that some of those (nearby) fields are naturally declining, so it would work for them too. It would be win-win," he said, without naming any companies.

Besides gaining a partner to develop Trion, Pemex also won rights, along with U.S. major Chevron Corp and Japan's Inpex Corp, to explore for oil in the third Perdido Fold Belt block up for auction, located just southwest of Trion.

In both projects, Pemex will be a minority stakeholder.

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)