Slowing down: Pemex's Cantarell field
Pemex sees 2007 output dipping
Mexican state-run oil monopoly Pemex today estimated its average crude oil production would fall by around 150,000 barrels per day in 2007, in line with an industry report this week.
Pemex said oil sales to the US, its biggest client, would not change, however.
Pemex, a non-Opec member and the world's ninth-largest exporter of crude oil by volume, exported an average of 3.281 million bpd of crude oil in 2006, slightly lower than in 2005 and 2004, Reuters reported.
A Pemex spokesman said output would fall roughly in line with an official forecast in Mexico's 2007 budget that oil exports will slip by 145,000 bpd this year.
"They are linked," the spokesman said.
The estimate is slightly more benign than an International Energy Agency report this week that predicts a roughly 200,000 bpd drop in Mexico's 2007 oil production, as Pemex struggles to replace declining yields at its aging Cantarell oilfield.
The Pemex spokesman denied a report in Mexican daily El Universal today saying Mexico would cut oil exports to the US.
"Crude shipments to the US will not decrease," the spokesman said.
Mexico exports roughly half the oil it produces. Of that, it ships around 80% to the US and the rest to Europe and Asia.