Oil production reaches its lowest level since 1979 in 2022

The national production of crude oil throughout 2022 averaged 1,622 million barrels per day, with which, according to the report at the end of the year of the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH), it fell by 2.54% in relation to the total extraction of crude oil. the previous year, thus having its biggest drop in the last three years and the lowest level since 1979, when it stood at 1,461 million barrels per day.

In addition, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) allocations had a year-on-year drop of almost double the national average (which includes contracts and other operators): 5.55%, averaging 1,443 million barrels per day, in contrast to production of 1,528 million barrels per day in 2021, also breaking the floor of one and a half million barrels per day on average.

The crude oil production in which Pemex participates, either through assignments, with the Ek Balam contract in shallow waters, the three land contracts where it was associated after contractual migrations from previous regimes and the two farmout contracts also on land, closed in an average of 1,558 million barrels per day, an annual drop of 4.7 percent.

It should be remembered that the last goal for the production of all liquid hydrocarbons (crude oil, gas liquids and condensates), set out in the Business Plan presented by Pemex last December, was to close 2022 with 1,828 million barrels per day. Therefore, if the maximum production of condensates and gas liquids that it obtained in the year is added to all the oil production that it had, including its partners, it would be reaching a level of 1,735 million barrels per day, which is at least minus 93,000 barrels per day below its goal.

Meanwhile, the contracts granted to private companies and to the state oil company presented an increase of 31.06% in their production, reaching 179,218 barrels per day.

Of these contracts, the one that contributes the greatest production (44% of the crude extracted in contracts) is the only one that managed to migrate Pemex without partners from two assignments: Ek and Balam, in shallow waters, to a shared production contract. In these fields, which Pemex reported to the CNH last year has not yet reached peak production, an average production of 80,211 barrels per day was achieved, 10.4% higher than the previous year.

And in the other contracts where Pemex has a stake, although they are operated by private companies that won a tender in the last administration: Cárdenas Mora, operated by the Egyptian Cheiron and Ogarrio, by the German Wintershall Dea, the average joint production was 10,464 barrels. per day, with an increase of 0.5%, after the second of these blocks had an annual production increase of 4.9%, reaching 5,203 barrels per day, while the remaining 5,261 barrels per day were extracted by Cheiron, which reported a reduction of 3.5% in its area located in Tabasco.

It stands out that in December there were 14 contracts with an oil extraction report granted through bidding rounds, which totaled 64,417 barrels per day, a volume that doubled in one year thanks to the 17% annual increase in the Miztón field, where the Italian ENI extracted 18,316 barrels per day; 1.5 times the consortium between Argentina’s Hokchi, which in the field of the same name reached 21,820 barrels per day, and four times the consortium between the Russian Lukoil (which bought its half from the American Fieldwood) and the Mexican Grupo Bal, Petrobal ( led by the former director of Pemex Exploration and Production, Carlos Morales Gil), which extracted 20,618 barrels per day on average in its first full year of operations.

karol.garcia@eleconomista.mx