Pemex will triple oil well drilling in 2019 to boost output

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Pemex, Mexico’s national oil company, plans to triple the number of wells it will drill this year, the company’s chief executive said on Monday, in a bid to grow crude output and reverse more than a decade of declining production.

The government-funded plan involves drilling 506 new wells located across 20 recently-discovered fields, according to a presentation from Pemex CEO, Octavio Romero. That would be more than three times the number of wells Pemex drilled in 2018.

The plan should produce over 300,000 barrels per day in new oil output by 2022, according to the presentation, which would mark a new record for Pemex.

“In Petroleos Mexicanos’ entire history, it has perhaps never developed 20 new fields in one year,” he said at President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s daily news conference.

Romero explained oil output was running at 1.68 million bpd.

“We can expect this level of production to be maintained and that it will begin to grow from this year,” he said. By the end of López Obrador’s term in 2024, Pemex’s crude production was expected to average nearly 2.5 million bpd, he said. Last year, its output averaged 1.8 million bpd.

Romero said Pemex’s production plan for 2019 also includes building 13 new offshore platforms to service 16 shallow water projects, all clustered around the southern tip of the Gulf of Mexico.

The offshore projects will be serviced by 14 new underwater pipelines covering some 175 kilometers to move the expected new streams of production.

Romero added that three new drilling platforms will be built to service four nearby onshore discoveries, as well as the expansion of nine others. Thirteen new onshore pipelines will also be built, covering 88 kilometers.

The Pemex chief, who has been close to the president since López Obrador was Mexico City’s mayor, said all the contracts to provide the required infrastructure had already been awarded but he did not name the winning firms.