Pemex to miss year-end output goal
Mexican state-run Pemex said it expects to end the year with crude oil production of around 2.8 million barrels per day, below its initial goal for the year of 3 million bpd.
"Our expectation is to close the year with a volume close to 2,800,000 barrels per day," Pemex's deputy director of exploration and production, Vinicio Suro, told an investor conference call.
Pemex, grappling with a steady decline in output at its main oil field Cantarell, produced an average of 2.84 million bpd of oil in June.
Output has been below 3 million bpd ever since October.
Pemex already had dropped its average production estimate for for the year to around 2.9 million.
Suro added that Pemex's latest target was to have production averaging between 2.8 million and 2.85 million bpd over the year, 8% below average production last year, said Reuters.
The slide in oil production since peaks of around 3.4 million bpd in 2004 is putting pressure on President Felipe Calderon to push through a proposed overhaul of the state-controlled energy sector through a divided Congress.
Suro said Pemex hoped to maintain Cantarell's daily output around steady at 1 million barrels until the end of the year.
Among other fields that Pemex is drilling as alternatives, output at the Ku Maloob Zaap offshore field is above 700,000 bpd and should reach a target of 800,000 bpd in 2009, Suro said, while the onshore Chicontepec field should be producing between 50,000 and 65,000 bpd by December.