LONDON (Alliance News) - MX Oil PLC Tuesday said it is one of 15 companies vying for 25 licenses to be awarded by the Mexican government in December.
The company is pouncing on the country's oil and gas licensing round, which opened the door to foreign companies after around 76 years of state monopoly, where MX hopes to secure two Type 1 blocks, which include onshore fields with estimated resources of around 100 million barrels of oil equivalent.
On Tuesday, MX said only 15 companies have been chosen to participate in Bid Round 1 of the licensing round after they paid to bid. The company is currently finalising documentation ahead of submission of the pre-qualification filing.
There will be 25 licenses on offer, down from the 26 expected by the company in May, stretched across the states of Chiapas, Nuevo Leon, Tabasco, Tamaulipas and Veracruz.
Back in September 2014, MX Oil said there would be around 169 fields on offer.
MX said it expects the results of the licensing round to be released in December 2015.
"With our bidding inscription paid and due diligence progressing well on our target blocks, we are excited about the months ahead as we move closer to the concession awards by year end. We remain confident of winning two or more oil producing blocks," said MX Chief Executive Stefan Olivier.
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 state-owned national oil company, via farm out agreements.
Although the company is focused on Mexico, it invested in the OML 113 licence offshore Nigeria earlier in July so it could build a platform from which to fund the development of the conventional onshore concessions in Mexico.
The Aje-5 well on the OML 113 license in Nigeria will take around 70 days to drill, and once completed, the company will re-enter the Aje 4 well. Both of those wells are expected to begin producing in December 2015.
Peak gross production of 41 API oil from these two wells is expected to reach 11,000 barrels of oil per day. When phase 2 of the project is completed production will increase to 19,000 barrels of oil per day.
MX Oil shares were down 0.9% to 2.88 pence per share on Tuesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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