PEMEX Announces Cuts Of 22% In Chincotopec Budget For 2010, Nearly Doubles Cantarell Spending

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Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, cut the proposed 2010 budget for its $11.1 billion Chicontepec field by 22 percent and almost doubled next year’s spending on the aging Cantarell deposit. Spending at onshore Chicontepec would fall to 21.1 billion pesos ($1.6 billion) from a proposed 27.1 billion pesos this year, according to a company presentation on the Web site of Mexico’s Congress.

Chairwoman Georgina Kessel said on Nov. 5 that Pemex would increase drilling at Chicontepec in 2010 as the Mexico City- based company seeks to stem falling output. The board is reassessing its Chicontepec investment after the project missed production targets in September. “The performance of this field has not met expectations,” said George Baker, an independent energy analyst in Houston. “This is a concession to criticism that Pemex has received.”

Pemex plans to spend 220 billion pesos on exploration and production next year, about the same amount as this year, according to the presentation, dated Oct. 7. The company may allocate 46.9 billion pesos to Cantarell, or 84 percent more than in 2009, it said. Cantarell, the world’s third-largest field in the 1970s, peaked at 2.192 million barrels a day in December 2003.

Pemex had an original Chicontepec target of more than 100,000 barrels a day for 2009. September output was 29,907 barrels a day, a decline from the previous month.

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