Mexico’s state oil company Pemex will select “one or two companies” with which it will continue working at its Chicontepec field in Veracruz and Puebla states based on the findings of the new so-called “field laboratories,” Houston-based oil service company Halliburton’s CEO Dave Lesar said in a webcast.

“At that point, we would work out an incentive-based structure going forward. The lab doesn’t have that in it. This just establishes the baseline of what you might be able to do going forward, and how you would benefit from that,” Lesar said.

Halliburton is one of five companies that was directly awarded a contract to administer a 10km2 field laboratory at Chicontepec, which has maintained production of only some 30,000b/d despite Pemex having signed billions of dollars in drilling contracts.

Pemex said in a March conference call that the field laboratories represent its most recent effort to reevaluate the field and determine how best to move forward.

The other firms administering field labs are Tecpetrol, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger and Weatherford.

The “key differentiator” between companies that will be able to continue working with Pemex will be those that have expertise in subsurface interpretation, drilling as well as completion, Tim Probert, Halliburton’s president of global business lines and corporate development, said during the webcast.

Probert highlighted the ongoing collaboration with Pemex to establish “a better way to prepare locations to essentially plan wells, as well as drill and execute wells” in order to identify more productive segments of the reservoir.

Upstream regulator CNH recently published its first review of the Chicontepec project, in which it largely criticized Pemex for proceeding without the appropriate planning or preparation and called for further studies of the field.

The regulator’s report highlighted Pemex’s field lab plan as a means to accelerate technological development but said results expected from the labs appear to be of less importance than meeting production goals.

Pemex said in March that it aims to produce an average 48,000b/d in 2010, with year-end output reaching 60,000b/d.

Chicontepec holds some 40% of 3P hydrocarbons reserves in the country, or 17.4Bboe. Pemex previously forecast that production would hit 600,000b/d by the end of 2020.

Similar Posts:

Share