Cantarell Field
Cantarell Field or Cantarell Complex is the largest oil field in Mexico, located 80 kilometers offshore in the Bay of Campeche. This field comprises four major fields: Akal, Nohoch, Chac, Kutz and the recently discovered Sihil. The first field was discovered in 1976, then known as Cantarell complex in 1996.
Cantarell complex produced 1.16M barrels/day of oil in 1981. However the production rate dropped to 1M barrels/day in 1995. Nitrogen injection projects, started in 1997, increased the production rate to 1.6M barrels/day (MMb/d), to 1.9 MMb/d in 2002 and to 2.1 MMb/d of output in 2003 which ranks Cantarell the second fastest producing oil field in the world behind Ghawar Field in Saudi Arabia.
Luis RamÃrez Corzo, head of PEMEX's exploration and production division, announced on August 12 2004 that the actual oil output from Cantarell is forecast to decline steeply from 2006 onwards, at a rate of 14% per year. By 2008 it is estimated only 1 MMb/d will again be all that is produced from Cantarell as it declines. The steep decline is an inevitable result of delaying the natural decline using Nitrogen Injection as the procedure only extracts the oil faster, it does not affect total production volume. The likely ramifications of this decline on world oil markets and downstream oil users are highly disturbing.
To maintain heavy crude production of the Bay of Campeche, PEMEX focuses on the development of Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex in adjacent area, which can be connected to the existing facilities of Cantarell. Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex is expected to produce 0.8 MMb/d by the end of decade.
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Categories: Oil fields | Geography of Mexico