Slippery slope: concerns mount at Pemex headquarters
Mexican crude flows hit four-year low
Mexican crude output and exports plummeted in December to levels not seen in years, data showed today, as state-run oil and gas monopoly Pemex battled with declining yields at its biggest oilfield.
Pemex said its crude oil production dropped 5.8% to 2.978 million barrels per day from 3.163 million bpd in November, the first time output has dropped below the 3 million bpd level in at least three years.
Crude exports dropped by an even sharper 14.7% to 1.525 million bpd in December from 1.788 million bpd in November, although Pemex said this was due in part to some December shipments being delayed to January because of bad weather.
Pemex's oil exports have mainly fluctuated between 1.75 million bpd and 2 million bpd in recent years.
The December figures left Pemex's average oil production for 2006 at 3.256 million bpd and average exports at 1.793 million bpd - both at their lowest levels since 2002, Reuters reported.
The state-controlled company is forecasting average oil production to fall by another 150,000 bpd in 2007, and sees exports down by around 145,000 bpd.
Today's figures come as concern is growing in the oil industry that Pemex, the world's ninth-largest oil exporter by volume and a major supplier to the US, will struggle to make up for falling yields at its aging Cantarell oil field.
The company is working to ramp up output at a newer offshore field, Ku Maloob Zaap, but analysts note that oil there is of poorer quality and more expensive to extract.
An International Energy Agency report last week predicted a roughly 200,000 bpd drop in Mexico's 2007 oil production.
The same week, Pemex denied a local newspaper report that Mexico would be forced to trim shipments to the US, its main client.
Pemex said in November that output at Cantarell is set to decline by around 14% a year from 2007.
Pemex is having more success boosting natural gas output, as it tries to reduce its reliance on costly US imports.
Today's data showed that average natural gas output was slightly higher in December at 5.573 billion cubic feet per day from 5.563 bcf per day in November. Natural gas imports also rose to 348.0 million cubic feet per day from 317.0 million cubic feet per day in November.
Over 2006, natural gas output averaged 5.356 bcf per day, its highest-ever level and up 11% from 2005, Pemex said at the weekend.