Raising expectations: Mexican Energy Minister Fernando Canales
Canales shrugs off Pemex output fears
Mexico's state-run producer Pemex should maintain oil production in the next few years, despite slipping output at the Cantarell field, the country's Energy Minister Fernando Canales said today.
After producing a record 3.38 million barrels per day of crude oil in 2004, Pemex's production slipped to 3.33 million bpd last year.
In the first four months of 2006, Pemex produced an average of 3.35 million bpd, of which it exported 1.96 million barrels daily.
"The expectation is that we will maintain the current production, with small increases in the coming years," Canales told the Associated Press.
Output at Cantarell, which produced just over 2 million bpd last year, is expected to decline to at least 1.9 million bpd this year, with production falling off more rapidly in 2007 and 2008.
Pemex is aiming to replace lost production at Cantarell by raising output at the offshore Ku-Maloob Zaap oilfield and at other projects.
However, Canales said that the results of production tests at the deep-water Noxal-1 well have been less than expected.
"The work at Noxal hasn't finished. Obviously the goal would be to extract the greatest possible amount, but the main goal is to begin developing the technology that Mexico lacks," he said.
In March, Pemex boss Luis Ramirez Corzo said Noxal-1 had opened a new area of potential reserves that could contain up to 10 billion barrels of crude.
The well was the third that Pemex has drilled in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico.