El petróleo mexicano comienza su recuperación con nuevos hallazgos

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José Antonio González Anaya, director de Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), no puede ocultar su entusiasmo por los hallazgos de nuevos campos que le van a aportar producción «fresca» de crudo y gas a México, pero es cauto y reconoce que «esto no resuelve el problema de Pemex, pero es un muy buen principio».

En entrevista con El Universal, el funcionario señala que los seis descubrimientos «hay que tomarlos poco a poco, pero demuestra que Pemex está trabajando para materializar el potencial que se tiene en el Golfo de México».

«Hoy tenemos a Trión, cuyas reservas ascienden a 485 millones de barriles de crudo y ahora también a Nobilisi-1, con 160 millones, aunque soy optimista y es posible que ese número pueda aumentar, no sabemos cuánto y en qué momento, pero es posible porque no hemos terminado los trabajos», detalló.

La importancia de los descubrimientos y de la licitación de Trión para encontrar socio de Pemex, radica en que se está «configurando una serie de activos en Perdido, cerca de los límites marítimos con Estados Unidos, que van sumando importancia en la incorporación de reservas». Lo malo, enfatizó el director de Pemex, es que desarrollar este campo como Trión, «va a llevar tiempo, y es posible que su producción se dé en seis o siete años».

Lo bueno, es que el otro pozo, Teca-1, que se localizó a 30 kilómetros entre Veracruz y Tabasco con reservas mas pequeñas, estimadas en 60 millones de barriles de crudo equivalente, aportará producción antes, «en un año y medio».

Al ser cuestionado sobre las limitaciones presupuestarias para desarrollar la infraestructura que necesitan estos nuevos activos, González Anaya comentó que «lo óptimo es hacerlo vía asociaciones y así es lo cómo lo estamos percibiendo. No es una particularidad de Pemex, porque cualquier empresa petrolera del mundo que se encontrara con esto también se asociaría».

Asociarse con otra empresa

Esta última es una de las razones del porqué las asociaciones son tan importantes, porque una vez concretadas «no entramos con todo el monto de inversión, va a ser sustancialmente menor y eso nos va a permitir desarrollarlo a una velocidad óptima». Hasta el 9 de septiembre, hay 10 empresas interesadas en asociarse con Pemex para desarrollar el pozo Trión. Están en la etapa de precalificación para obtener el contrato de exploración y producción que se licitará el 5 de diciembre.

Entre ellas, las gigantes estadounidenses Chevron y ExxonMobil; la británica BP; la angloholandesa Shell; la francesa Total, y la rusa Lukoil, entre otras. Sobre el proceso y el posible ganador, el funcionario comenta que «es un proceso competitivo, trasparente y nosotros vamos a trabajar con el que gane».

Además, debemos considerar el escenario que se abre con los nuevos descubrimientos para que estas empresas intensifiquen su presencia en México.

En torno al problema de la caída de la producción, el director de Pemex aseguró que el objetivo de la empresa es estabilizar la producción y con un eventual repunte.

Los escenarios aportados por la Secretaría de Energía (Sener), advierten sobre un derrumbe del 24.3 por ciento en los niveles de extracción durante los seis años del actual Gobierno, lo que significa que el país habrá dejado de producir 620,000 barriles diarios de promedio.

Para 2018, se espera que México produzca 1,925,000 barriles diarios, 3,000 barriles menos que la plataforma prevista para 2017. No obstante, el director de Pemex estima que para 2018, laproducción de la plataforma puede ser un mayor.

Objetivo 2020

Los analistas de la Secretaría de Energía también estiman, basándose en información que les proporcionaron Pemex y la Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos, que no habrá una recuperación en la actividad petrolera hasta 2020 y que a partir de 2021 pueden incorporarse los efectos asociados a los campos adjudicados en las licitaciones de las Rondas 1 a 4.

De hecho, consideran que para 2022 México producirá 2,600,000 barriles diarios, 675,000 barriles más que los niveles registrados en el último año de esta administración, lo que significa que la aportación de los campos asignados a Pemex y a las empresas privadas, con la apertura del sector promovida por la Reforma Energética, apenas van a servir para compensar la caída de la producción durante el periodo 2012-2018. Mas aun, la producción de crudo que se alcanzara en 2022, es similar a la que el país producía en 2009 (2,601,000 barriles diarios en promedio).

En cuanto a la producción que se espera alcanzar en 2022, González Anaya afirmó que en 2017 y 2018 van a tratar de estabilizar la plataforma y el descenso de los campos. También reconoció que si no se encuentran nuevos yacimientos, la producción caerá porque campos como Cantarell y Ku-Maloob-Zaap están bajando rápidamente, «entonces para mantener la plataforma debes de tener producción incremental cada año, barriles frescos, y esto se va haciendo cada vez más difícil, pero nuestro objetivo es esta- bilizar la producción con perspectivas positivas hacia delante».,

En cuanto al futuro de la empresa, González se muestra seguro: «Yo veo un Pemex fuerte, eficiente, transparente, que fomente el sector energético y el desarrollo del país y que continúe siendo la empresa emblemática del país, pero que ya no va a ser la única».

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Fuente: El Economista

At $500 Million A Pop, It’s An Oil Gamble That Has No Precedent

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In a far corner of the Caribbean Sea, one of those idyllic spots touched most days by little more than a fisherman chasing blue marlin, billions of dollars worth of the world’s finest oil equipment bobs quietly in the water.

They are high-tech, deepwater drillships — big, hulking things with giant rigs that tower high above the deck. They’re packed tight in a cluster, nine of them in all. The engines are off. The 20-ton anchors are down. The crews are gone. For months now, they’ve been parked here, 12 miles off the coast of Trinidad & Tobago, waiting for the global oil market to recover.

The ships are owned by a company called Transocean Ltd., the biggest offshore-rig operator in the world. And while the decision to idle a chunk of its fleet would seem logical enough given the collapse in oil drilling activity, Transocean is in truth taking an enormous, and unprecedented, risk. No one, it turns out, had ever shut off these ships before. In the two decades since the newest models hit the market, there never had really been a need to. And no one can tell you, with any certainty or precision, what will happen when they flip the switch back on.

It’s a gamble that Transocean, and a couple smaller rig operators, felt compelled to take after having shelled out millions of dollars to keep the motors running on ships not in use. That technique is called warm-stacking. Parked in a safe harbor and manned by a skeleton crew, it typically costs about $40,000 a day. Cold-stacking — when the engines are cut — costs as little as $15,000 a day. Huge savings, yes, but the angst runs high.

“These drillships were not designed to sit idle,” said Willard Duffey Jr., an electrician who spent two decades with Transocean. The Deepwater Pathfinder, a ship he had served on for four years, was among the first to be parked off the Trinidad coast. The ship made the voyage there from the Gulf of Mexico about a year ago. Duffey was one of the last men aboard before the engines were turned off. He fretted constantly — “did I do everything I could?” — as he flew back home to Ore City, Texas. “To get the Pathfinder back up would be very difficult to guess actually,” he said.

These rigs, once famously labeled the “new Ferraris” of the oil world, are no ordinary ships. Carrying a price tag of about $500 million a piece, they are loaded bow to stern with sophisticated, and very heavy, gadgetry.

Below the water line sit a half-dozen Rolls-Royce thrusters, coordinated by satellite to push against each other and keep the rig hovering on top of wells lying as much as two miles underwater. Up on deck, there’s a robot that can be launched to work a screwdriver or a wrench under water pressures on the seabed that no human could survive. And the 220-foot tall, dual-activity oil-drilling derrick is capable of simultaneously lifting and lowering gear down to the seafloor, including a diamond-studded drill bit, a five-story-tall blowout preventer and a heavy-drill pipe. The derrick can handle as much as 5 million pounds of gear — equal to the weight of some 20 adult blue whales — going up and down at one time.

All of these fancy elements, though, are what make turning the ships back on so daunting. Chip Keener, whose rig-storage consulting firm advises Transocean, compares it to what would happen if you left a high-tech new car parked in the garage for months. The battery would be dead, sure, but then there’d also be a slew of pre-sets to reprogram. On a drillship, there are thousands and thousands of pre-sets. And unlike your car, those on a ship are essential to its proper functioning. “It’s a big deal,” says Keener.

For now, cold-stacking has been a huge success for Transocean, a long-time Texas powerhouse that’s based today in Switzerland. (It owned the offshore rig that BP Plc was operating in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster.) The company reported a profit of $77 million in the second quarter, surprising investors who had been bracing for a loss. Its stock price jumped 8.5 percent in minutes the next morning in New York.

«I don’t think a simple congrats on this quarter’s cost beat is really sufficient,» one stunned analyst, Scott Gruber at Citigroup, told Transocean executives on a conference call. “A big kudos to all of you.”

Still, there are any number of deepwater rig operators unwilling to turn the engines off: Noble Corp., Rowan Cos. and Pacific Drilling, to name a few. They’re paying anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 a day to store their out-of-work ships. Chris Beckett, the CEO of Pacific Drilling, said the unknowns of cold-stacking are just too great and the cost to keep the ships running too manageable — about $10 million a year — to turn them off. He likes the peace of mind that comes with this approach. “We don’t worry about how you start them again,” Beckett said in an interview in the company’s Houston headquarters.

The cold-stack versus warm-stack dilemma doesn’t figure to go away anytime soon.

Nearly half of the world’s available floating rigs are out of work today, and most observers expect that number will climb further. Not only are the drillship operators’ customers — the likes of ConocoPhillips and Total SA — slashing spending in high-cost offshore areas and canceling work contracts early, but new rigs that were ordered in recent years keep rolling out of shipyards. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates as much as $56 billion worth of offshore rigs, capable of drilling in everything from shallow water to oceans more than two miles deep, are still under construction.

It’s a far different mood than a couple years ago, when crude was hovering around $100 a barrel and just about every single deepwater rig on the planet was in use. Transocean’s Pathfinder was in many ways the symbol of those go-go days. In mid-2014, just as oil prices were peaking, Eni SpA agreed to pay Transocean $681,000 a day to lease the ship. It was one of the richest drilling contracts ever, an amount that’s about triple the rate a deal signed today would fetch. By the end of that year, with oil in freefall, Eni canceled the contract four months before it was due to expire.

Things are quiet on the Pathfinder these days. The water is calm off Trinidad, one of the top global destinations for drillship storage. A handful of seamen recruited locally make the rounds, in part to ward off criminal elements. They’re joined every once in a while by Transocean mechanics sent in to monitor the ships. The company’s chief operating officer, John Stobart, recently dropped in to check them out himself. CEO Jeremy Thigpen said Stobart came away encouraged.

«He was really impressed with the preservation of all the critical components,» Thigpen said at an energy conference in New York this month. «His belief is, ‘Listen, we’re going to be able to reactivate these rigs in a timely and low cost manner.’»

Stobart’s going to have to wait for his chance. Oil, after having briefly rebounded above $50 in June, is slumping again. And Transocean seems prepared to be in Trinidad for a while. According to island officials, the contract that the company’s negotiating to lease out seabed space could extend through October of 2020.

Financial Growth

Financial Growth

Copyright: Rig Zone

What Does OPEC’s Freeze Talk Really Mean?

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Heading into the home stretch before a highly anticipated OPEC meeting in Algiers next week, crude industry experts and non-OPEC members alike are opining on what may happen to crude production.

Dave Pursell, managing director and head of macro research at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. in Houston, told Rigzone the production freeze idea is based largely on optics.

“But, they’re raising expectations that there will be an agreement,” he said. “I think they need to do something, and the challenges are less now than they were earlier this year.”

Oil prices have tumbled from more than $100 per barrel in 2014, as prodigious supply outsized demand. More recently, crude prices have hovered in the low $40s.

As Pursell explained, OPEC members Iraq and Libya can’t produce more oil, anyway, at least in the near term. Iraq needs significant capital investment to move forward, and Libyan production is struggling under the weight of political unrest.

“The reality is the only reason you can get a freeze is because people can’t grow. The only spare capacity in the world sits inside of Saudi Arabia and Libya. That doesn’t mean Iran and Iraq can’t grow over time, and the rest of OPEC can’t grow a little bit over time, but it takes a ton of capital,” he said. “There’s no spare capacity that could easily be brought on.”

Still, Pursell said that even if a production freeze agreement is mostly for show, it’s not meaningless.

“But it’s important ‘show’ in that shows they can agree to something. There’s this notion that OPEC is irrelevant and my argument is that if OPEC is irrelevant, how come I’m talking about them every day? And so if they’re going to eventually have to cut – which we don’t think they will – but if they do, you first have to have an agreement to not increase,” he said. “You have to agree on something, and then if you have to make a harder choice down the road that you have to cut, there’s more confidence that it could actually be implemented.”

Many analysts, including Pursell, have said a cut is unlikely, though. Russia recently said it’s off the table. The nation’s energy minister told UPI there are no proposals to slash crude production. Alexander Novak said one option under review would be to maintain production rates at current levels for the up to six months.

According to a new Reuters’ story anonymous sources have said Saudi Arabia would be willing to cut its crude production if Iran will cap its oil output. Iran has steadfastly said it won’t consider a freeze until it has ramped production back up to pre-sanction levels, but that may soon happen.

Copyright: Rig Zone

Stacked Oil and Gas Make Permian Deals Costly in Spite of Rout

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Oil prices are depressed, but Texas shale has never been more valuable.

A recent spate of land deals in the sprawling Permian Basin illustrates a counter-intuitive trend: Real estate in the country’s most active oil field is even more expensive today than it was before commodity prices crashed.

QEP Resources Inc. agreed to pay a price that works out to close to $60,000 per net acre in June for a slice of the Permian, in the basin’s priciest land deal on record.

That’s more than double the average $30,000 per net acre explorers paid for Permian land during the first nine months of 2014, when oil topped $100 a barrel, according to data from Citigroup Inc. Oil has been hovering at $45 to $50 per barrel since mid-August.

Over the past few months, at least four other explorers agreed to pay more than $30,000 per net acre to expand in the Permian: Concho Resources Inc., Parsley Energy Inc., SM Energy Co., and Silver Run Acquisition Corp., according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“The valuations are pretty lofty,” said Bryan Lastrapes, managing director at Moelis & Co. “When you look at the prices being paid for a flowing barrel, they are higher than when oil was at $100.”

Unusual Geography

The obvious question: With oil so much cheaper today, why has Permian land become so pricey? There are a few explanations. The first comes down to the same reason a dingy is more valuable on a sinking ship.

“It’s about scarcity,” said Bruce Cox, global head of energy acquisitions and divestitures with Credit Suisse Group AG.

The Permian is one of the few places in the U.S. where drilling remains profitable amid low prices, thanks to its unusual geography, in which different layers of oil- and gas-soaked rock are stacked like layers in a cake, he said. An explorer can drill multiple horizontal wells after digging straight down.

“What you can’t find in most plays is the Permian hydrocarbon column,” Cox said. “Companies can drill two to four times as many wells over a 10-year development period” in the Permian than in other basins.

QEP Rationale

This is a key part of the rationale QEP used to justify the price it agreed to pay for the 9,400 net acres in the Permian in June.

The company told investors it sees a chance to drill more than 400 horizontal wells along four different benches of shale, more than a half-mile down, where it has already determined there is oil. It sees additional upside potential drilling riskier, wildcat wells on three other benches. So it isn’t buying just one field, but as many as seven.

That deal also addresses a perpetual critique from investors that QEP isn’t big enough in the Permian, by increasing its position there by 50 percent, Richard Doleshek, QEP’s chief financial officer, said in August.

“From a dollar-per-acre standpoint, we heard a lot of conversation about how that was a big number,” Doleshek said during a presentation at an oil and gas conference sponsored by Enercom Inc., according to a transcript compiled by Bloomberg.

“When you look at it on a target basis, it’s relatively reasonable,” he said. “It’s pristine acreage.”

Lower Costs

Another factor driving up Permian land prices is the fact that it has some of the lowest break-even costs in the world. The area has more than a half-dozen fields where drilling can stay profitable even when oil falls below $30 a barrel, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The oil rout has set off a land grab for that reason, said Ron Gajdica, co-head of energy acquisitions and divestitures with Citigroup.

“When oil prices were high, there was a high supply of acreage with economic drilling opportunities,” he said. “Now, in a $40 to $50 oil price environment, acreage with economic locations is scarcer. There are only a limited amount of opportunities and many of them are in the Permian.”

A couple of other things are driving up the price of Permian land. First, development costs have come down sharply during the downturn, thanks to lower service costs, technological advances and more efficient techniques, Gajdica said. That means explorers can justify paying higher prices for land.

Second, Wall Street is helping the trend. Publicly traded Permian explorers such as Concho and Parsley trade at a premium to other shale players. They paid for their recent acquisitions with stock. Since their currency is worth more, they can afford to pay up.

In addition, other explorers with operations elsewhere, such as QEP and SM, saw their share prices spike after striking deals in the Permian, which could spur even more dealmaking in the area.

“The market tends to respond favorably when these Permian deals are announced,” Gajdica said.

Copyright: Bloomberg

Los productores de petróleo retrasan su cita del 27 de septiembre: la reunión de la OPEP será el 28

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La esperada reunión de la Organización de Países Productores de Petróleo (OPEP) se retrasa un día: el encuentro de los líderes del crudo será el 28 de septiembre y no el 27, como estaba previsto.

En este escenario, los precios del petróleo han iniciado la semana con subidas. El barril de West Texas y el de Brent cotizan por encima de los 44 y de los 46 dólares, respectivamente, después de que la semana pasada acumulasen un descenso cercano al 6%. 

Parte de las alzas de la jornada está apoyada en las declaraciones del presidente de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, asegurando que la OPEP y sus rivales están «cerca» de alcanzar un acuerdo para estabilizar la producción de crudo.

En particular, Maduro afirmó que los países de la OPEP y los que no forman parte del cártel estarían «bastante cerca» de alcanzar un acuerdo para estabilizar el mercado durante este mes de septiembre.

Por su parte, el presidente iraní, Hasán Rouhaní, señaló que Teherán apoyará cualquier movimiento para equilibrar el mercado y elevar los precios, según recoge Shana, la agencia de noticias del Ministerio de Petróleo del país persa.

Fuente: El Economista

RGU Secures Funding to Help Develop Oil, Gas Workforce in Mexico

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Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Aberdeen has been awarded funding to create a skills development framework for the oil and gas sector in Mexico. 

The framework will provide recommendations on how to address the potential skills gap in the Mexican oil and gas industry over the next 15 years, both at graduate and vocational level. The university secured the funding, which will be delivered by the British Embassy in Mexico, from the British Government’s Prosperity Fund. 

As part of the development plan, RGU will advise the Ministry of Energy in Mexico (SENER) on appropriate delivery models to train and further develop the Mexican workforce, and to secure a pipeline of future talent.

Work on the development plan has already begun and the framework will be presented to the Mexican Government in December, an RGU spokesperson told Rigzone. In its plan, RGU is undertaking a review of what the UK has done to develop its skilled workforce and is using that information to advise the Mexican Government.

Although Mexico has a long-standing track record as one of the leading hydrocarbon producing countries in the world, it is estimated that it will require more than 135,000 additional skilled people in the oil and gas industry over the next 15 years in order to meet production targets set by the government. 

“The Energy Reform in Mexico presents huge opportunities for the Mexican oil and gas sector,” said Professor Paul de Leeuw, director of RGU’s Oil & Gas Institute.

“RGU is delighted to undertake this important review on behalf of the FCO and to advise the Mexican Government on skills development options for Mexico,” he added.

«As part of the Energy Reform, SENER has developed a coordinated strategic human resource program for the energy sector, seeking to rapidly build capacity to respond to the needs of the transformed energy sector,” said Leonardo Beltran, SENER’s undersecretary for planning and energy transition.

“The partnership with the UK and particularly with RGU will support the development of capacity building of Mexico’s oil and gas sector,” he added.

“We aim to build a strong partnership that promotes an open, robustly-regulated Mexican energy sector with significant British collaboration. The UK is a global centre of energy excellence and we hope our experience can contribute to the successful implementation of Mexico’s new energy markets,” said the British Ambassador to Mexico, Duncan Taylor.

The project builds on the relationship RGU has been developing with SENER following the visit from the President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto and his delegation to the university in March 2015, and builds on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which RGU signed with SENER in September 2015.

This project is funded by the British Embassy in Mexico as part of its Prosperity Fund energy program. This program seeks to support Mexico’s economic development and create commercial opportunities in the energy sector. Through the Prosperity Fund, the British Government has supported Mexico to shape its energy legislation based on international best practices.

Copyright: Rig Zone

Oil Bears Dominate Market as Doubt Grows Over Output Limits

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The longer OPEC and other producers talk about a ceiling on crude output, the more doubts grow in the market.  

Money managers increased wagers on falling prices by the most in three months as a meeting between Russia and Saudi Arabia ended without specific measures to support prices. Producers have pledged to discuss action in Algiers later this month.

“The more they talk, the less people listen,” said Michael D. Cohen, an analyst at Barclays Plc in New York. “If you look at the actual statements from the Saudis, there’s not a lot of enthusiasm. They’re saying that either they don’t believe a substantial intervention is needed right now or that if other producers want a freeze, they’ll go along.”

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said on Sept. 5 that he’s optimistic producers will agree to cooperate in Algiers. He spoke after meeting with his Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, at the G-20 summit in China. Novak said that a freeze in production by OPEC and Russia would be the most effective way of stabilizing the market.

The International Energy Forum, including 73 countries that account for about 90 percent of the global supply and demand for oil and natural gas, will meet in the Algerian capital Sept. 26-28. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will hold informal talks on the sidelines of the gathering.

Parsing Words

“Everyone is sifting for clues on whether OPEC will reach an agreement to limit production or leave it uncapped with the potential for higher output,” said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citi Futures Perspective in New York. “At this point we’re waiting for the outcome of the talks. A lot of people are standing to the side while others are building positions with a specific view in mind.”

A freeze deal between OPEC members and other producers was proposed in February. A meeting in April ended with no accord because Iran refused to join, while Saudi Arabia insisted that its rival take part. Iran has said it’s too soon to cap output as it’s still restoring production curbed by sanctions.

Speculators bolstered their short position in West Texas Intermediate crude by 34,954 futures and options during the week ended Sept. 6, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Bets on rising prices declined.

Prices Drop

WTI futures dropped 3.3 percent to $44.83 a barrel in the report week and prices lost 1.6 percent to $45.15 at 9:18 a.m. New York time.

Futures surged Sept. 8 after the Energy Information Administration reported U.S. crude inventories fell 14.5 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 2, the biggest drop since January 1999. Prices retreated the next day as speculation grew the supply drop was a one-off caused by a tropical storm that disrupted imports and offshore production.

Money managers’ short position in WTI climbed to 130,274 futures and options. Longs fell 1.9 percent. The resulting net-long position dropped 19 percent. Net-long positions in Brent crude decreased by 37,226 contracts, according to ICE Futures Europe.

In other markets, net-bullish bets on gasoline declined 32 percent to 11,148 contracts. Gasoline futures dropped 9.1 percent in the report week. Net-long wagers on U.S. ultra low sulfur diesel tumbled 56 percent to 9,840 contracts. Futures declined 4.3 percent. 

Gambling Momentum

“There’s a lot of gambling taking place,” said Stephen Schork, president of the Schork Group Inc., a consulting company in Villanova, Pennsylvania. “A lot of money managers are betting that a bottom has been put in but I’m skeptical.” 

U.S. crude stockpiles remain at their highest seasonal level in more than 20 years. Refineries plan maintenance programs for September and October when fuel demand is lower. Over the past five years, refiners’ thirst for oil has dropped an average of 1.2 million barrels a day from July to October.

“The market will probably yo-yo in a range through the maintenance season but there’s downside risk,” Schork said. “If demand isn’t a strong as hoped and crude inventories rise, the market could take another leg lower.”

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Copyright: Bloomberg

Proponen liberar precios de gasolina

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El Gobierno Federal propuso al Congreso de la Unión la liberalización del precio de las gasolinas y el diesel a partir de 1° de enero de 2017

En los Criterios Generales de Política Económica para la Iniciativa de Ley de Ingresos y el Proyecto de Presupuesto de Egresos de la Federación Correspondientes al Ejercicio Fiscal 2017, la propuesta de la SHCP señala que tras adelantar la libre importación de gasolinas para actores distintos a Pemex, en abril pasado aunque estaba prevista para 2017, ahora se deben liberar los precios.

“El siguiente paso que se propone, con el que se consolidaría la reforma energética en materia de combustibles fósiles, es la liberalización gradual y ordenada de los precios al público de las gasolinas y el diésel”, señalan los criterios.

En la propuesta reconocen que la liberación ocurriera a más tardar en el 2018 pero ahora se considera que ya están listas las condiciones fiscales y se están fortaleciendo las capacidades de la autoridad reguladora por lo que puede ser antes aunque de forma gradual y regional.

Se propone la CRE con la opinión de la Comisión Federal de Competencia Económica (COFECE), determinen el ritmo de la liberalización de los precios para las distintas regiones del país y mientras no sean liberalizados los precios al público de las gasolinas y el diésel se propone que la SHCP determine los precios máximos al público aplicables. 

Para proteger a los consumidores se proponen medidas que complementen las facultades de las dos autoridades que podrán monitorear de manera continua los precios al público.

Durante 2017 y 2018, cuando la CRE, previa opinión de la COFECE, informe a la SHCP que se han presentado aumentos desproporcionados en los precios al público de las gasolinas o el diésel, dicha Secretaría podrá establecer precios.

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Fuente: El Economista

Mexico 2017 Budget Cuts To Squeeze Pemex, Primary Surplus Eyed

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Mexico’s government on Thursday set out plans for a bigger-than-anticipated cut in public spending in 2017, with struggling state oil company Pemex earmarked for a 100 billion peso ($5.36 billion) reduction in funding.

New Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade said the budget foresaw planned spending cuts of 239.7 billion pesos ($12.83 billion), targeting a primary surplus of 0.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017. It would be the first such surplus since 2008.

Of the cuts, 100 billion pesos fall on Pemex, which is already facing a funding squeeze and has racked up multi-billion dollar losses for years. Since the government ended its oil and gas monopoly nearly three years ago, Pemex has faced stiff competition from the private sector.

«Pemex is making the biggest contribution to the cuts,» Meade said, presenting the budget proposal to Congress a day after he was sworn in as finance minister following the resignation of Luis Videgaray.

In late 2013, the government threw open the industry to private capital to reverse a protracted slide in oil production, but falling crude prices have undermined those efforts.

Currently running at some 2.16 million barrels per day (bpd), Mexican oil production will slip to an average of 1.928 million bpd in 2017, the budget forecasts. The last time Mexican crude output fell below 2 million bpd was in 1980.

Still, the budget does foresee changes aimed at easing Pemex’s heavy tax load.

Less than two years remain before the next presidential election, and President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government is struggling to ramp up economic growth, having fallen well short of its original ambition to achieve annual rates of 5-6 percent.

Hurt by uneven U.S. demand for its goods, Mexico’s economy shrank in the second quarter for the first time in three years.

Next year, the budget foresees growth of between 2 and 3 percent, compared with 2.0-2.6 percent in 2016.

Despite the 2017 cuts – well above the 175.1 billion the government eyed in April – non-discretionary spending was expected to rise by 144.3 billion pesos, inflated by higher financing costs and a slide in the peso’s value.

Next year the government foresees an overall deficit of 2.9 percent of GDP, 0.6 percentage points less than the 2016 target.

The budget foresaw the peso averaging 18.2 per dollar in 2017, and an average price of $42 per barrel for Mexican crude, in line with the government’s hedging program. ($1 = 18.6600 Mexican pesos)

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Copyright: Rig Zone

Hacienda fija las condiciones para los socios del bloque de Trión

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La dependencia presentó un mecanismo para resolver un probable empate entre los aspirantes a participar en la explotación del bloque.

La Secretaría de Hacienda informó en un comunicado que determinó los valores mínimo y máximo para la regalía adicional y los mecanismos a adoptar en caso de empate entre los participantes en el proceso de licitación para ser socios de Pemex en la explotación del campo petrolero de Trión.

El 27 de julio se dio a conocer la convocatoria para seleccionar a los socios con quienes Pemex llevará a cabo las actividades de exploración y extracción de hidrocarburos en el bloque de Trión, ubicado en aguas ultraprofundas del Golfo de México. El proceso de licitación ocurrirá en diciembre.

Según puntualiza el comunicado, las actividades petroleras se llevarán a cabo al amparo de un contrato de licencia donde el Estado recibirá ingresos a través de distintos instrumentos, entre ellos Impuesto sobre la Renta y la Regalía Básica establecida en ley.

De acuerdo con el comunicado de Hacienda, debido a las condiciones imperantes en la industria a nivel internacional además de las condiciones del bloque de Trión y los requerimientos operativos y de ejecución del proyecto, los valores mínimos y máximos para la Regalía Adicional serán de 3% y 4%.

En caso de presentarse un empate entre dos o más licitantes, un 10% del monto en efectivo que ofrezca el consorcio ganador deberá pagarse al Estado y el resto deberá destinarse a inversiones y gastos adicionales en favor de Pemex.

Hacienda apunta que los valores establecidos promoverán el desarrollo óptimo del bloque Trión

La inversión para Trión, uno de los campos con mayor potencial de extracción, está proyectada en 11,000 millones de dólares para los siguientes 10 ó 15 años.

El bloque Trión, ubicado en el Cinturón Plegado Perdido, cerca de la frontera con Estados Unidos, tiene un área de 22.6 kilómetros cuadrados y reservas probadas, probables y posibles (3P) de 305 millones de barriles de petróleo crudo equivalente.

Bloque de Trión

Fuente: Expansión