Pemex Oil Production Drops 6.5% on Cantarell Field (Cantarell down 33%)

But perhaps they're just leaving the oil in the ground for later. Government policy is such a powerful force after all...

EDIT

State oil company Pemex thinks it can access up to 12 billion barrels of crude at Chicontepec, almost as much as its current proven reserves, and sees the project as a stopgap solution until hoped-for discoveries in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico can be brought online. But drilling efforts have so far been only marginally successful and there is widespread skepticism that the technology can be found to cheaply and quickly transform the area into a new giant oil-producing project.

As recently as 2002, Mexico forecast the 29 fields in the Chicontepec basin would pump nearly one million barrels per day by 2010. But after drilling more than 650 wells between 2002 and 2007, production today is only 35,000 bpd. Pemex now aims to boost the basin's output by 75,000 bpd a year until it reaches 580,000 bpd in 2021. Production costs are significantly higher at Chicontepec than other fields in Mexico because wells drilled there produce very little oil. The area's dense rock and small oil pockets impede the underground flow of crude, meaning many more wells are needed than at a similar-sized conventional oilfield.

Chicontepec's wells typically produce only 100 to 150 bpd and much of the output dries up a few months after production starts, according to longtime Mexico oil analyst George Baker.

"It is an extremely challenging production situation. There is a lot of skepticism and until they find a technology that gets a better recovery rate you might as well count it out," said Baker, who runs a Mexican oil consultancy in Houston. Pemex believes new technologies can be found to boost output and notes Mexico's recent energy reforms allow it to reward contractors who bring in new practices and technology. Pemex has awarded nearly $2.3 billion since mid-2007 in infrastructure and drilling contracts at Chicontepec to firms like Schlumberger, Fluor Corp., Mexico's 8 and driller Weatherford.

EDIT

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/calgarybusiness/story.html?id=b0db32fd-cbe5-429f-8fb7-290a74136067

But the rate of depletion at Cantarell seems to be the petroleum equivalent of Everest losing a half mile per year due to erosion. Truly bizarre.

You start out with plenty of pressure in your lungs. As the air runs out, you blow harder. The harder you blow, the faster the remaining air goes out.

That is how we extract oil.

a by-product of the meteor strike that ended the age of the dinosaurs. The structure of the field is basically more porous than most any other, so quicker to draw down and with steeper decline rate.