15 March 2014, News Wires – A top Mexican energy regulator said the country will release years of seismic data ahead of the planned opening of its oil and gas sector to international players.
Juan Carlos Zepeda, president of the National Hydrocarbons Commission, said at an event in Houston this week that potential investors will be allowed to look at geophysical data collected for years by Pemex that had previously been kept under wraps, the Houston Chronicle reported.
“We will disclose all the seismic information that has been kept confidential for decades,” Zepeda was quoted as saying.
Mexico is making the data available as the government works out the details of a landmark energy reform that ends state-owned Pemex’s 75-year monopoly on the oil and gas sector.
Would-be investors have said access to the seismic data would be an important factor in deciding whether to move forward in Mexico. Bill Maloney, Statoil’s executive vice president of development and production, recently characterised Pemex’s seismic data as a vertiable “treasure trove”, the Chronicle reported.
Zepeda expects Pemex to transfer the heretofore confidential data to the national regulator for public release in the coming months.
“The sooner we open up this information, the better for the industry,” he was quoted as saying.
Mexico’s government hit a speed bump on the road to reform when the opposition conservative National Action Party walked out of talks, accusing the government of using a graft scandal to its benefit.
– Upstream
