Oil Discoveries Suggest Mexico’s Bet to Open Energy Sector Is Paying Off
But after drilling, he said, “we found that even our bullish expectations were conservative, and we have something much more interesting.”
Because of Mexico’s rich resources and proximity to the United States, Mr. Marti continued, “we think
that over the next few decades, Mexico is going to be a very important source of growth in the oil and gas sector.”
Also on Tuesday, Eni, an Italian oil company, said a well recently drilled to test a previously announced discovery had shown
that the trove also held more than one billion barrels of oil — much more than previously thought.
The consortium, made up of Premier Oil of Britain, as well as Talos Energy of Texas and the Mexican company Sierra Oil and Gas, said
that it had discovered a field containing more than one billion barrels of oil in shallow water 40 miles off the Mexican coast.
On Tuesday, an international consortium of energy companies said they had discovered a large oil field,
and another firm said it had discovered more oil than expected in a separate area.
Riverstone Holdings, an American private equity firm
that specializes in energy investments, owns 45 percent of Talos Energy and 43 percent of Sierra Oil and Gas.
In an interview, Alfredo A. Marti, a former BP executive who is now a Riverstone managing director, said
that high-tech data processing indicated that the Mexican government’s estimates for the amount of oil in the field might have been too low.