Large oil reserves found ....

Three years of exploration has enabled Pemex to map oilfields that the state-owned oil monopoly believes will more than double the nation's known crude oil reserves.
Luis Ramírez Corzo, Pemex's director for exploration, told EL UNIVERSAL that on a "conservative" estimate, almost 54 billion barrels lie underneath the oilfields. That would take Mexico's reserves to 102 billion barrels, more than the United Arab Emirates (which has reserves of 97.8 billion barrels), Kuwait (94 billion) and Iran (89.7 billion), and almost as much as Iraq (112.5 billion).
The official also said the discovery could enable Pemex to increase Mexico's oil production from the current level of 4 million barrels per day (bpd) to 7 million bpd.
Saudi Arabia currently produces 7.5 million bpd, while Russia's oil output is 7.4 million bpd.
Ramírez Corzo said the exploration, at an investment of US4.6 billion, led to the identification of seven separate blocks rich in oil and natural gas. The most promising blocks are under water in the Gulf of Mexico, thought to contain around 45 billion barrels.
"That's the good news," Ramírez Corzo said. "The bad is that owing to the complexity of the technology needed to exploit the oilfields and the levels of investment required, (Pemex) can't go it alone."
He said Pemex will prepare special "alliance contracts" to attract the involvement of multi-national corporations with capital to invest and the most up-to-date deep sea oil extraction technology.
Similar "multiple service contracts," which Pemex has used to attract foreign capital to extract natural gas from the northern Burgos Basin, have met with legal challenges by opposition lawmakers. Under Mexico's Constitution, exploration and exploitation of the nation's energy resources is the exclusive preserve of the state.
The contracts would maintain Mexican ownership of the oil while allowing the multi-nationals a return on their investment to extract the resources from under the sea, Ramírez Corzo said