Mexico Aims to Boost Crude Oil Production by 45% by 2025

OILMONSTER.COM- Mexico aims to lift oil and gas production by almost 50 percent in the next six years, and in January will agree on infrastructure and drilling contracts to develop 20 fields, the head of state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos said on Saturday.

Speaking from Ciudad del Carmen on Saturday, Mexico's new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador detailed his plans to rescue the national oil industry, according to the Associated Press.

Petroleos Mexicanos, otherwise known as Pemex, has seen a drop in its production since 2004 when it extracted some 3.4 million barrels per day. Last October, the company produced just 1.7 million barrels of crude. “We are going to invest where we know there’s petroleum and where it costs us less to extract it,” he told a jubilant crowd of oil workers.

Earlier this month, Lopez Obrador - AMLO, as he is called by his initials - announced plans to invest 75 billion pesos ($3.65 billion) of savings from a government austerity program into Pemex in 2019, in a bid to boost crude and refined products' output.

AMLO cited the corruption and theft that has plagued the state-owned oil industry, saying “This is why the country is sinking." He vowed to clean it up, reiterating his plan to “rescue” the oil industry as “realistic” and pledging to move Pemex’s headquarters from the capital to Ciudad del Carmen.

Octavio Romero, chief executive officer of Pemex was also with AMLO on Saturday. According to CNBC, Romano says the new government will increase exploration investment by around 10 percent per year to reverse dwindling output as he presented a new plan for the industry.

The government plans to speed up exploitation of 20 fields in and around the Gulf of Mexico, Romero said. To this end, contracts to develop the necessary infrastructure will be awarded on Jan. 15 and to drill wells on Jan. 31, he added.

“We are very clear about our mandate,” said Romano, reports the Financial Times.. “With the intervention of the federal government, we’ll rescue the most important company in the country and turn it once again into the level of national development.”

Courtesy: www.digitaljournal.com