New Wave Media

Mexico's oil regulator, the National Hydrocarbons Commission, set Jan. 31 as the date for the next round of auctions for deep-water oil and gas tenders in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

The so-called 2.4 auctions will offer 30 areas, of which 10 are in the Cordilleras Mexicanas deepwater basin, 10 others in the Salina Basin, nine in the Perdido Fold Belt off the U.S.-Mexico maritime border and one more in the Yucatan platform.

 

The Cordilleras Mexicanas deepwater basin is home to national oil company Pemex's Lakach natural gas project and located east of the Gulf Coast port of Veracruz.

 

Cordilleras Mexicanas is viewed by the oil and gas industry as having extensive untapped potential.

 

The auction will be the first time the basin has been made available to international oil majors, which for decades have profitably developed other fields in U.S. waters nearby.

 

Mexico's first deepwater oil auction last December included blocks from the Perdido Fold Belt straddling the U.S.-Mexico maritime border, and the Salina basin further to the south.

 

A 2013 constitutional energy reform ended Pemex's decades-long exploration and production monopoly, paving the way for seven oil auctions since then.


(Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez; Editing by Tom Brown)