LONDON (Alliance News) - MX Oil PLC on Thursday said it has held "active discussions" with Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex about securing a joint venture partner for assets in Mexico ahead of the results of the first licensing round open to foreign companies for 76 years.
MX Oil said the talks with Pemex are "progressing well", and it anticipates it will be in a position to update the market about the discussions "in the coming months".
MX Oil is working with local oil and gas service provider Geo Estratos as its partner in Mexico, and the pair are separately trying to secure existing fields operated by Pemex, the national oil company, via farm out agreements.
Those talks are ahead of the results of bid round one of the Mexican licensing round which will be released in November, with the subsequent licenses being awarded in December. The round is significant as it signals the end of a state monopoly over oil and gas production in Mexico spanning more than seven decades.
One of the criteria that will boost companies applying in the licensing round is previous experience working with Pemex, and on Thursday, MX Oil said it had appointed Nigel McKim as a new non-executive director which will boost its technical team through his previous experience working with Pemex.
"With Nigel on board, the group's technical team collectively has approximately 200 years of oil and gas experience which, thanks to a number of the team having previously worked for Pemex, includes first hand working knowledge of the specific fields we are targeting in the latest bid round 1 for onshore Mexican concessions," said the company.
"As a result we believe we have a knowledge advantage which has been key to understanding both the issues and opportunities that exist on the blocks we have analysed," it added.
Last week, the company said it plans to bid on five concessions in the first round, and in August it said it aimed to secure at least two licences. MX Oil is one of 15 companies vying for 25 licenses to be awarded by the Mexican government in December.
In May, MX Oil said it planned to target fields with estimated resources totalling 100 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Although the company is focused on Mexico, it invested in the OML 113 licence offshore Nigeria earlier in July so that it could build a producing platform from which to fund the development of the conventional onshore concessions in Mexico.
It is currently drilling in Nigeria, where it is hoping production will begin in December, which would be in tandem with the licence awards from the Mexican government. Peak production from two wells in Nigeria is expected to reach 11,000 barrels of oil per day before it enters phase two to boost that production up to 19,000 barrels of oil per day.
MX Oil shares were trading up 0.7% to 2.34 pence per share on Thursday.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.