UPDATE 2-Mexico's Pemex to operate two shallow water projects with partners

By David Alire Garcia and Marianna Parraga

MEXICO CITY, March 27 (Reuters) - Mexican national oilcompany Pemex plans to operate at least two new blocksit won with partners in a shallow water auction on Tuesday, thecompany's exploration chief said in an interview.

Pemex expects to invests as much as $300 million overall ina four-year exploration phase for the seven contracts it won,more than any other company, said longtime head of exploration,Jose Antonio Escalera.

Petroleos Mexicanos, as the state-owned company is formallyknown, grabbed seven of the 35 blocks on offer, either as anindividual bidder or in consortia.

Overall, 16 blocks were awarded in the last tender scheduledbefore a July presidential election and the energy ministryforecasts investment of as much as $8.6 billion over thelifetime of the contracts.

"We can say that of these six blocks that we won (inconsortia) in two of them we will be the operator and in theother four our partners will be the operators," said Escalera.

Pemex will operate Block 18, won with Spain's Cepsa, as wellas either Block 32 or 33, won with France's Total, theexecutive said.

Total said in a statement that it will hold a 50 percentstake in block 32, while Pemex, the operator of the block, willhold the other half. The French oil and gas major will be theoperator in block 33 where both companies hold equal shares.

In block 34, it said BP will be the operator with a45.5 percent stake. Total will hold 42.5 percent and PanAmerican15 percent.

In recent years, Pemex has sought more equity partnershipsin projects to find and extract new streams of oil and gas as away for the cash-strapped firm to reverse declining output.

"One thing that makes us very happy is that today we havetwo new partners," Escalera said, referring to Cepsa and Total.

Pemex has in the past few years entered into partnershipswith Australia's BHP Billiton, U.S. major Chevron, Anglo-Dutchmajor Royal Dutch Shell, Japan's Inpex and Germany's DEADeutsche Erdoel.

Escalera said that in Block 29 that Pemex won as anindividual bidder, the company plans further study of the areaand to begin drilling a first exploration well by the end of2019 or the start of 2020.

"In the others, we've only committed to further study" inthe projects' initial phase, he said.

Escalera said the blocks it won in the Tampico-Misantlabasin on Tuesday will permit a cost-saving cluster adjacent toanother block it won last year with DEA Deutsche Erdoel.

"This will allow synergies...and in these areas PetroleosMexicanos already has oil infrastructure in place," he said.

More than 70 percent of Pemex's current oil and gasproduction comes from nearby shallow water projects.(Reporting by David Alire Garcia and Marianna Parraga;Additional reporting by Bate Felix in ParisEditing by Dave Graham, Aaron Sheldrick and Adrian Croft)