Following on from the recent news that Royal Dutch Shell, one of the premier makers of lubricants in the world, is planning to focus a lot of its efforts in Mexican territorial waters, one of its executives has helped to outline the plans.
Telling the world that he is very enthusiastic about the potential offered by investment in the Mexican waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Marvin Odum, the upstream Americas director for the organisation, discussed the following key objectives:
Shell waters run deep
Ahead of anything else, Odum said Shell is interested in the deep waters comprising the Mexican territorial waters.
The Trion field
This oil field is one such area that the company is keen to exploit. At a depth of 8,333 feet (2,540 metres), it is located around 25 miles from the sea border with the USA. It is estimated to hold around ten billion barrels of recoverable oil and is likely to be the first target area for a Shell project.
The Exploratus field
This is also in the Perdido Fold Belt, like Trion.
Mexican stand up
The success of the venture will be in partnering with the Mexican firm Pemex.
Existing infrastructure
Shell will hope to exploit its existing logistics and hardware resources, including its US pipe and platform network. This would help the firm to optimise the extraction of reserves.
Other structures that are already in the area for its US territorial field operations could also be used.
Shell is the number one producer of oil and gas derivatives from deep water in the territorial waters of the US in the Gulf of Mexico. At present, its production rate is around 400,000 barrels per day, with the crude going on to produce all manner of fuel and lubricants.
In Mexican territorial waters, crude production has actually slid back in the last ten years, something that the country is keen to reverse.
