UT Co-hosts Rollout of Mexico’s Historic Round One Oil and Gas Offerings
October 24, 2014
Every seat was filled at the Houston Four Seasons on Oct. 20 when the Mexican government unveiled information on the oil and gas areas and fields it will make available to private companies in 2015.
The historic event, hosted by the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences Latin America and Caribbean Program and the Greater Houston Partnership, was the first time Mexican officials presented the information in the United States. It is part of Mexico’s game-changing decision to deregulate its oil and gas industry and open it up to private investment and development.
“After more than 70 years of a state-run monopoly, Mexico is opening up its oil and gas industry,” said Jorge Piñon, director of the Latin America and Caribbean Program. “This is historic. Houston was the first city for this presentation and the University of Texas at Austin was chosen as the host. I think that speaks volumes about not only our state, but this institution.”
The roughly 400 people in attendance included representatives from integrated major oil companies, large independents, petroleum equipment and service companies, and the legal, banking and investment communities. Visitors came from all over Texas as well as other states and countries.
The crowd saw presentations by Mexican officials including Maria de Lourdes Melgar Palacios, undersecretary of hydrocarbons, Juan Carlos Zepeda Molina, president commissioner of the National Hydrocarbons Commission, and Eduardo Camero, assistant treasury secretary.
During round one, Mexico will offer private oil companies the rights to bid on acreage in the Perdido and south Gulf of Mexico deepwater, onshore Chicontepec basin, unconventional fields, shallow water and heavy oil fields. The round one tender will include 169 exploration and production blocks and cover a total of 28,500 square kilometers with a potential of more than 18 billion barrels of oil equivalent in cumulative prospective resources, and proven and probable reserves.
Find more information about round one here.
The Jackson School’s Latin America and Caribbean Program is an interdisciplinary program that focuses on identifying and facilitating research and academic opportunities between its Latin American and Caribbean stakeholders and students, faculty and researchers at the University of Texas at Austin. The program has hosted past events with energy officials from Chile, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Guatemala, Brazil and Mexico.