Spotlight: Mexico's oilfield development plan

Mexican oil and gas giant Pemex's updated development plan for its key fields lays out the firm's upstream priorities for 2023-27.

In its latest business plan, the company said this year it will focus on getting its Pokche and Akal fields into full production. Pokche is among Pemex's fastest growing fields, and at the end of 2022 was posting output of 32,000b/d. Akal is a gas field, and part of the legacy Cantarell asset.

In 2024, Pemex plans to reach full output in two key fields: Macuil and Zama.

Macuil, in an area neighboring Pokche off the coast of Tabasco state, had raised expectations for Pemex, although an exploratory well last year saw the light crude field yield only 10% of the company's estimations.

The Zama field, meanwhile, is a 700Mb (million barrels) discovery made by Talos Energy, with Pemex designated operator by the energy ministry in early 2022. Pemex's draft development plan for Zama expects the field's oil output to reach 180,000b/d at its peak, roughly 11% of Mexico's total production.

A definitive development plan should be presented by the partners this quarter, according to Talos.

In 2025, meanwhile, the spotlight will be on the Kayab and Pit fields. The Kayab heavy crude field is the subject of a US$18.7bn development plan, Pemex has said, to recover 494Mb of crude and 53.2Bf3 (billion cubic feet) of natural gas through the spudding and completion of 35 wells over the next two decades.

The following year would see development of the Tlalkivak discovery, which the company started appraising last year, and in 2027 the Niquita discovery, which was found in 2020.

The company also includes the fields it is currently focused on: Tlacame, Mulach, Camatl, Itta, Teca, Teekit Profundo, Tetl, Tlamatini, Uchbal, Suuk and Xanab, all offshore, and Cibix, Ixachi, Quesqui, Tupilco Profundo, Racemosa, Valeriana, Popte and Actul, onshore.

Output from Pemex's new fields is expected to come in at almost 600,000b/d by the end of 2023, stabilizing closer to 550,000b/d over the next four years. Natural gas production is expected to rise steadily to 1.73Bf3/d in 2026.