A Little Monday Night Doom - Cantarell in Mexico down Half Million Barrels per Day

As of last year, this was the world's second-largest oil field in terms of daily production. Not sure where it stands today, might have slipped to number three.

[link to www.rigzone.com]

Daily output at Mexico's biggest oil field tumbled by half a million barrels last year, according to figures released Friday by the Mexican government. ... The virtual collapse at Cantarell -- the world's second-biggest oil field in terms of output at the start of last year -- is unfolding much faster than projections from Mexico's state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. Cantarell's daily output fell to 1.5 million barrels in December compared to 1.99 million barrels in January, according to figures from the Mexican Energy Ministry. ... Mexico's troubles at Cantarell mirror the larger problems in the global oil market. Many of the world's biggest fields are old and face decline, which can be sharp and sudden. ... The field's decline is expected to continue, if not worsen, this year, according to most estimates. ... "This is bad news for Mexico. The field is declining faster than even the government's pessimistic scenarios," says David Shields, an oil industry consultant in Mexico City who has been warning about Cantarell's collapse for the past two years. ... A year ago, The Wall Street Journal published an internal Pemex study that reviewed possible scenarios at Cantarell. The study's best-case scenario forecast Cantarell's production would fall to 1.54 million barrels a day by the end of last year -- almost exactly what happened. At the time, top Pemex officials disputed the report and said the study's scenario represented a "do-nothing" or "worst-case" approach that didn't take into account maintenance at the field. Pemex predicted that Cantarell production would only drop to 1.87 million barrels a day by December ... Based on the state company's track record so far at Cantarell, including its current rates of recovering the oil that remains in the field, Mr. Shields expects the field's output to drop another 600,000 barrels a day by the end of this year. He says that Pemex will likely increase output by 200,000 barrels a day at other fields -- leaving the country with a net decline of 400,000 barrels a day by year's end.