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Latin America\u2019s two biggest oil companies are betting big on a high-risk effort to unlock a vast trove of crude from rocks that haven\u2019t seen the light of day in 160 million years.<\/p>\n
Petroleo Brasileiro and Petroleos Mexicanos have teamed up to probe a layer of the Earth\u2019s crust beneath the Gulf of Mexico that\u2019s older, deeper and potentially richer in oil than the world\u2019s existing mega-fields. The physical, financial and environmental risks are enormous given the challenges inherent in drilling for crude miles beneath the seafloor through unstable, high-pressure shelves of stone.<\/p>\n
The target is a geologic cluster off the coast of Mexico\u2019s Campeche state that Pemex explored without success in 2018. It stands in stark relief to the gushers on the US side of the Gulf that pump oil trapped within rocks laid down roughly 20 million years ago. Instead, Petrobras and Pemex are seeking to delve into stone formations that are eight times as old, from an era when dinosaurs and ancient molluscs dominated the land and the seas.<\/p>\n
For Pemex, it\u2019s a Hail Mary shot at revitalisation as it grapples with smothering debt, shrinking oil output and a reputation for inefficiency and danger. But the effort matters to global oil markets, too, as the war in Iran and other geopolitical disruptions in the Mideast have laid bare the peril of having so much supply concentrated in a single region.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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The incentive for drilling into the older formations is that they potentially hold a far bigger payday because they\u2019re the so-called source rock, where organic detritus was crushed, cooked and transformed into petroleum. In contrast, the younger stones are just pockets where leaks from the source rocks got trapped over time.<\/p>\n
Teams from both companies began assessing seismic and other geologic data in recent weeks with an eye toward accomplishing a feat that\u2019s never been done outside of Petrobras\u2019 home territory of Brazil.<\/p>\n
\u201cPetrobras is entering uncharted territory,\u201d said Pedro Zalan, a geologist who worked on exploration projects during a 34-year career at the company. The geology on the Mexican side of the Gulf \u201cmakes it particularly favourable for oil accumulation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petrobras is uniquely adept at probing source rocks in a layer of the crust that geologists call the pre-salt. A series of gigantic offshore discoveries near Rio de Janeiro, starting in 2006, ushered in a transformative boom in pre-salt oil production for South America\u2019s biggest economy. Subsequent bids by other companies to duplicate those successes in pre-salt formations in Angola, Gabon and the Republic of Congo largely fizzled.<\/p>\n
\u201cPemex alone doesn\u2019t have the technology or the capital for this kind of play,\u201d said Mark Rowan, a Colorado-based geologist and consultant who specialises in deep Gulf of Mexico discoveries. \u201cBut just because it\u2019s high risk doesn\u2019t mean the hydrocarbons aren\u2019t there. Companies are willing to drill very risky prospects and be first movers because the potential rewards, if successful, are enormous.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2018, Pemex bored more than 7 800 meters below the seafloor and penetrated the Campeche salt layer. Although the exploratory well was declared unproductive, in industry parlance, that\u2019s not necessarily synonymous with useless. The data and insights extracted from that well may yield valuable clues for the geologists and engineers at Petrobras and Pemex.<\/p>\n
\u201cApparently, what Pemex found did not scare them away,\u201d Rowan said. \u201cThat suggests there was no absolute play-killer, and possibly something that gave them real reason to keep testing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Even if there is oil under the salt, getting it to the surface will prove challenging. Salt behaves more like a liquid than a solid under high temperatures and pressures deep underground, and penetrating it requires specialised equipment and techniques.<\/p>\n
The wells must also prove economically viable, and deepwater drilling can easily cost upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars per well.<\/p>\n
In addition to exploring the pre-salt zone, the companies plan to search beneath sedimentary rocks formed by mud and sand avalanches miles below the sea surface, as well as beneath younger, shallower salt formations, Petrobras\u2019 head of exploration and production, Sylvia Anjos, said during an Aug. 7 media briefing.<\/p>\n
Supermajors including Chevron Corp. and Shell Plc have been pumping crude from so-called sub-salt fields for more than 30 years. And although those reserves are in very deep water and pose their own hazards, drilling the much older pre-salt resources being pursued by Petrobras and Pemex is on another level of complexity and risk.<\/p>\n
A find on par with the Tupi field Petrobras discovered in 2006 would represent the most significant development for Pemex in its 88-year history. It would help achieve the goal of successive Mexican presidents and Pemex CEOs of revitalising production at what was once the nation\u2019s economic crown jewel.<\/p>\n
In Brazil, tapping the pre-salt reserves triggered a surge in crude output, turning an economy largely reliant on agricultural exports into a hemispheric energy superpower.<\/p>\n
Tupi alone has given up 4 billion barrels of crude since it came online in 2010. That\u2019s more than $300 billion in economic value, based on average international oil prices over that timespan.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much depends on what the data from Pemex\u2019s 2018 pre-salt well actually shows, and they\u2019ve kept the results of that study a guarded secret,\u201d said Jon Blickwede, geologist and owner of Houston-based Teyra GeoConsulting. \u201cIf Pemex found any hydrocarbon shows, either gas or oil, under the salt, it would be extremely significant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 Bloomberg<\/p>\n
#Oil #giants #eye #Jurassic #rocks #Mexico<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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