Eni discovers large reserves of natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico

The Italian multinational Eni has announced a new natural gas discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, in medium-deep waters off the Mexican coast.

The discovery contains an estimated potential reserve of 300 to 400 million barrels of oil equivalent, the company said.

The block where Eni was drilling for gas is located in the Sureste Basin, where Eni has an estimated total of more than 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent in in-place resources. The company plans to transform the area into what it called “a development hub,” taking advantage of several discoveries in the area.

News of Eni's discovery comes on the heels of a report that Carlos Slim, Mexico's richest man, is investing $1.2 billion in the development of another offshore gas field , the Lakach project, led by state energy major Pemex.

Mexico has expanded its gas-fired generation, building new power plants and, as a result, further developing its gas resources to reduce its overwhelming dependence on imports from its northern neighbor, with record import rates.

Mexico recently updated the estimate of its proven oil and gas reserves, revising the total upwards, to a total of 8.383 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Proven reserves, classified as P1, are the best estimate of recoverable resources under current technological and economic conditions.

According to Mexican government data released in June by the National Hydrocarbons Commission, Mexico's proven crude oil reserves decreased slightly to 5.978 billion barrels, compared to 6.155 billion barrels a year earlier. However, proven natural gas reserves saw a significant increase, rising to 12.297 trillion cubic feet from 11.029 trillion cubic feet.

Mexico's President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum has pledged to increase investment in natural gas generation.

Sheinbaum's energy plan calls for adding approximately 13.7 GW of new power generation capacity to the grid over the next six years, with some of that coming from solar installations. For comparison, Mexico will add 3.3 GW of new gas and solar capacity this year.

The article Eni discovers large reserves of natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico comes from Economic Scenarios .

This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/eni-scopre-ingenti-riserve-di-gas-naturale-nel-golfo-del-messico/ on Tue, 09 Jul 2024 13:14:00 +0000.