Zama oil find targets 2020 FID

Upgraded resource estimate from Mexican field boosts hopes of a financial decision, but a serious potential roadblock remains

Mexican president Andres Lopez Obrador took little time in shelving all planned licensing rounds when he secured office at the tail-end of 2018—rolling back a raft of energy reforms which had granted new entrants’ access to the sector for the first time since the sector’s nationally iconic 1938 nationalisation and ending state-owned oil and gas firm Pemex’s monopoly. But while further concessions have now been suspended, discoveries already made by beneficiaries of the reforms are moving towards first oil. The shallow water Zama discovery, first announced in 2017 by a consortium of operator US independent Talos Energy (35pc), Mexico’s Sierra Oil and Gas (40pc)—later taken over by Germany’s W