Billionaire Carlos Slim's Grupo Carso SAB signed a $1.99 billion, three-year deal with state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos to drill 32 wells in a Mexican natural gas field.
The Ixachi field, in the country's southern state of Veracruz, "is one of the most important land fields in the nation," Carso said in a statement Monday.
Slim has been building his stake in the oil sector to make him the biggest private partner to state-run Pemex - and among the only remaining investors willing to do business with the highly indebted oil giant. He has also invested in giant oil field Zama and Lakach, for instance.
Slim has a storied history of turning around a losing money business that needs a shot of efficiency - and doing it in a very non-competitive business. Even with his business acumen and deep pockets, however, Pemex is mired trying to dig out from under a $100 billion debt pile and recover oil production that's plummeted to a 40-year low.
The Ixachi field produces on average 93,000 barrels of oil and 715 million cubic feet of gas daily, representing a total of 236,000 barrels of petroleum equivalent per day, Mexico City's Carso said. Twenty-eight wells already have been drilled in the field and Carso has operated through subsidiaries.
Pemex will begin to pay for the drilling of the wells from January 2027 with revenues obtained from hydrocarbons that were sold under the project. Carso is expecting that by then 12 of the 32 wells would have entered into production.
The value of the contract, signed by Carso's subsidiary GSM Bronco SA and MX Dlta NRG 1 SA, can be lesser in case of drilling fewer than 32 wells, the company said.
Carso's subsidiaries have also participated in Quesqui field drilling and the development of gigantic deepwater Lakach project, part of Slim's growing interest in going into the energy sector. His companies have sunk more than $2 billion in oil field assets and a Gulf of Mexico gas deposit.
Carso noted that Pemex still owes money in some of its subsidiaries' drilling contracts.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum's administration, which is aiming to make Pemex financially independent by 2027, has continued to finance the driller, with provisions that involve extending new debt to finance short-term maturities.