El Universal Online [1] reports some interesting news.
Three years of exploration has enabled Pemex to map oilfields that the state-owned oil monopoly believes will more than double the nation’s known crude oil reserves.
Luis RamÃrez Corzo, Pemex’s director for exploration, told EL UNIVERSAL that on a “conservative” estimate, almost 54 billion barrels lie underneath the oilfields. That would take Mexico’s reserves to 102 billion barrels, more than the United Arab Emirates (which has reserves of 97.8 billion barrels), Kuwait (94 billion) and Iran (89.7 billion), and almost as much as Iraq (112.5 billion).
The official also said the discovery could enable Pemex to increase Mexico’s oil production from the current level of 4 million barrels per day (bpd) to 7 million bpd.”
The importance of this find cannot be over-estimated; This report would place Mexico on par with the current capacity of Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Current estimates of the total cache amount ot 54billion barrels, which would place it above the UAE and Kuwait, Iran, and nearly more than Iraq.
Gee, ya think this’ll have any effect on the futures markets?
Only question is, will we get the refining capacity past the environuts, and online? It should be noted that Pemex is already increasing their refining capacity, at Tula, Mexico, for example, pictured here. With the Environuts force us to import our gas from Mexico?
Update: Edited to fix headline typo, hat tip: Billy Beck’s [2]mailnote