Australia’s BHP Billiton is expected to start exploration drilling at Mexico’s Trion discovery in the fourth quarter of 2018.
The energy and mining company acquired a 60 percent stake in the field in late 2016, with Mexico’s Pemex holding the remaining 40 percent. The agreement was a historic one as it marked the first such deal for Pemex with a foreign company.
The country’s energy sector had been closed for foreign investments for decades, however, this was changed in 2013, when the government introduced reforms, allowing the foreign oil firms into the country.
To start things off, the Trion agreement included a commitment to deliver a minimum work program, which consists of drilling one appraisal well, one exploration well and the acquisition of additional seismic data.
According to a Reuters report on Friday, February 16, BHP Billiton will start exploration drilling at the Trion field in October.
The Trion field, located in the Perdido belt in the Mexican part of Gulf of Mexico, was discovered in 2012. Earlier reports by Pemex put Trion’s total P3 reserves at around 485 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Reuters, however, has reported that BHP Billiton places Trion’s “contingent resources” at 475 million barrels of oil equivalent.
The news agency has further revealed that the four-year offshore exploration plan included three potential well locations, west of the two original Trion wells drilled by Pemex in 2012 and 2014.
In its recently released annual report for 2017, BHP Billiton said that Trion exploration expenditure for FY2018 was expected to be approximately $75 million.
Offshore Energy Today Staff