Oil heavyweights Exxon, Shell and Chevron ready to dive into Mexico's deep waters

2 HRS AGO
If you're a super-major oil explorer, Mexico says it's got a bargain for you.

The once-giant crude nation whose output plunged in the past decade is enticing the world's richest explorers with cut-rate prices for drilling rights to its most coveted offshore fields. The Jan. 31 auction for access to 29 deep-water tracts comes as $70-a-barrel crude lifts foreign drillers from the worst market slump in decades.

Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp. are among the 21 entrants registered to bid next week, the National Hydrocarbons Commission announced Thursday in a webcast. The sale will be Mexico's biggest, in terms of fields and expected investment, since government-controlled Petroleos Mexicanos's monopoly ended in 2013.

Mexico's demand for low upfront bonus payments probably accelerated interest in the auction, Horacio Cuenca, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie Ltd., said in an interview in Rio de Janeiro. The blocks also don't require large initial investment commitments.

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