Pemex Plans to Invest $269 Billion in Next 10 Years to Increase Oil Output

Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, plans to invest $269 billion by 2019 to increase production, the company’s chief executive officer said.

Pemex, as the company is known, should not have trouble having its planned investments approved by Congress and will spend about $27 billion a year over the next decade, CEO Juan Jose Suarez Coppel, said today at a conference in Mexico City. [bn:PRSN=1]

Suarez Coppel [], who became head of Latin America’s largest crude producer a year ago, is seeking to boost production at the company for the first time in six years as he slows declining output at the Cantarell field, the largest oilfield in the Americas when it was discovered in 1976.

Pemex presented a 2011 budget proposal, including non- investment expenditure, of 400 billion pesos ($31 billion) to the Finance Ministry, up from the 260 billion earmarked for this year. The ministry will send a final proposal to Congress next week, and Congress is scheduled to vote on the plans by Nov. 15.

Investments over $25 billion will help ensure “gradual growth” in Pemex’s output to a goal of 3.3 million barrels a day by 2024, Energy Minister Georgina Kessel said April 29 in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York.

About 80 percent of the Mexico City-based company’s investments will be allocated to exploration and production, Suarez Coppel said.

Lawmakers from the country’s three largest parties told Bloomberg News last month Pemex may get enough congressional support to increase its budget to a record.

To contact the reporter on this story: Carlos Manuel Rodriguez in Mexico City at carlosmr@bloomberg.net

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