Vista Oil and Gas relinquishes half of another onshore oil area in Tabasco

Vista Oil and Gas will leave half the land area where it operates close to Pemex Cityin Tabasco, identified as CS-01, where, like other oil companies in the country, it will focus on the development of 385 barrels per day of oil and 84,000 cubic feet daily gas that it acquires through two drilled wells, also returning a fraction of the area where it already has production, becoming creditor to possible fines for non-compliance with the minimum work program when this process of resignation and abandonment of the license contract is concluded, explained the National Commission of Hydrocarbons (CNH).

The contract that he leaves was signed on December 8, 2017 for which he was left as a joint and several obligor Jaguar Exploration and Productionwhich sold 100% of its shares to this operator, for the license contract with a duration of 30 years in the area that originally is 95,168 square kilometers.

Two stages converge in the area in which the company works: that of the additional exploration period that would end on October 7, 2023, but that with the resignation will reach a maximum of the first half of next year, and the development stage, where Vista partially relinquishes an area still to be defined.

The contractual resignation is made in exercise of a contractual right contained in clause 3.4 of the agreement, where it indicates that you can resign at any time without affecting the minimum work program, the obligation to terminate activities and that it may include penalties if you do not these assumptions are met.

The return to the State of an area is also contemplated in clause 7.1 of the contract, which specifies that it must return half of the contractual area if it is declared in breach.

As of April 8, 2021, the contractor’s development plan was approved and on September 24, 2021, the additional exploration period. Both will be modified after these resignation and return. The return and resignation will include an update of the inventory of assets, a report on the condition of wells, deposits, infrastructure, abandonment of what is not returned to the state and compliance with environmental regulations, explained the CNH.

“The conventional penalty will be calculated after October 7, 2023, when the additional exploration period ends according to the work units that are tested,” the member of the CNH contracts unit, Daniel Pedraza, assured the government body.

Vista Oil and Gas was the first special purpose company to acquire companies in the energy sector Listed in 2017 on the Mexican Stock Exchange Sponsored by the Riverstone International Fund.

This company, of Argentine origin and with production in the Vaca Muerta shale field in that country, it acquired blocks from the Mexican company with Monterrey capital that obtained the best results in the oil tenders of the past administration: Jaguar Exploration and Production, which in turn was split into two subsidiaries, Jaguar and Pantera, to continue exploration in the country, while the development of its blocks was sold to Vista Oil and Gas.

Among the companies that report gas production to the CNH through contracts are Vista Oil and Gas, Canamex, Pantera, Hokchi, Iberoamericana de Hidrocarburos, Fieldwood (acquired by the Russian company Lukoil), Diavaz, Diarqco, Wintershall Dea and, of course, Pemex. , through companies in farmouts and migration of contracts from the regime prior to that of 2014.

It should be remembered that just last week the governing body of the National Hydrocarbons Commission approved that the oil companies Chevron y PC Explore begin the process of early termination by waiving all two contracts for deep-water exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, which were awarded to them in Rounds 1.4 and 2.4 of the past administration. With this, a total of 13 partial or total resignations was reached among the 107 oil areas awarded to private companies in the past administration.

The companies that have partially or totally returned blocks are the Mexican Canamex Energy Holdings, Consorcio Petrolero 5M del Golfo and Pantera Exploration and Production, in land portions mainly in the north of the country, both because they are unprofitable areas and because of security conditions in the region and the Covid 19 pandemic.

Land blocks have also been returned by other national companies such as Iberoamericana de Hidrocarburos CQ, Exploración & Producción de México; Multiple Services of Burgos, and even Pemex Exploration and Production, according to the authorizations of the CNH.

And among the international companies with the greatest presence in the global industry that have returned fields are, in addition to Repsol and PC Carigali, the French company Total; the American Exonmobil, the English Capricorn Energy; the Mexican company with operations in South America Citla energy; the consortium between Argentina Hokchi Energy, and the company with the largest discovery of a private company in the Zama block that will unify with Pemex, Talos Energy.

Finally there are others like China Offshore; the property of the company of Qatar, QPI, Sierra O&G Exploration and Production and the British Premier Oil.

karol.garcia@eleconomista.mx