The state company closed the year producing 1,616 million barrels of oil per day. In an annual comparison, production decreased by 4%, or 61,000 barrels per day, according to records from the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH). The data indicates that last November the lowest figure was recorded since the market regulator has registered, in 2016. Last December it had a slight increase, of around 10,000 barrels per day.
But that decline has been offset by privately operated fields, which ended the year at around 103,000 barrels per day. The results have been mainly driven by companies such as Mexico’s Hokchi and Italy’s Eni. As Pemex extracts less oil, assets run by private companies report better performance.
“In oil we are not seeing growth, at the moment Pemex is reducing its oil production and increasing its condensate production. If we look at the total figures (of national production), those who are driving the figures are the private companies in assets such as Hokchi and Miztón (in charge of the Italian Eni),” says Omar Ríos, an analyst at the consulting firm Welligence.
While Pemex increases its production through condensates – a hydrocarbon contained in gas fields and which is usually combined with oil to be exported or used in refineries – the production of private companies is based purely on oil extraction. The state company has not had any luck in finding new large deposits, the fields that it designated as priorities have not had the projected success and so It has based its strategy on fields –such as Quesqui and Ixachi– that produce gas and condensates. But Pemex is wasting the gas and prioritizing the extraction of the second hydrocarbon.
Private companies have been delayed in meeting their production goals, which had been set above 200,000 barrels to finish last year. But it has grown steadily. Last December’s production, the latest data available, was 102.754 million barrels. A year earlier it closed at 74.809 million barrels per day.