Mexico's Deepwater Gas Field Project Comes Under Review

(Credit: New Fortress Energy/Archive)

Grupo Carso is reviewing the feasibility of the Lakach deepwater natural gas project in collaboration with state energy company Pemex and conducting new analyses to determine how to proceed, a company official said Tuesday.

The company signed an agreement last year to partner with Pemex to develop the project in the Gulf of Mexico, aiming to revive a venture that the state-owned company had twice before abandoned.

"What is being reviewed is the feasibility in terms of cost versus benefit, because gas prices do not match the investment required," Arturo Spinola, Grupo Carso's Chief Financial Officer, said during a call on the company's third-quarter results.

Pemex and companies that form part of the empire of Mexican billionaire investor Carlos Slim have been in talks over at least two of the country's most promising fields, Reuters revealed earlier this year.

In February, Slim described the Lakach project as "complicated," noting that the depth of the resource offshore adds to the difficulty.

The field, located about 90 kilometers from the port of Veracruz, holds an estimated 900 billion cubic feet of gas, according to available data.

(Reuters - Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez and Adriana Barrera, writing by Stefanie Eschenbacher, Editing by Natalia Siniawski)