Mexico faces high water costs in exploiting shale

摘要

Mexico City—Mexico’s shale resources have been much vaunted, by the US Energy Information Administration among others, but the lack of water to exploit them could discourage investors aiming to cash in on President Enrique Pena Nieto’s energy reform, analysts said Monday. According to the EIA, Mexico has 8 billion barrels of recoverable shale oil and 545 Tcf of shale gas. However, the state oil company, Pemex, has undertaken only experimental drilling of shale resources. The acid test for shale will come in next year’s Round One of bidding for the first upstream licenses under the reform with the first licenses to be awarded perhaps as early as May. “By then we’ll see what the international industry considers to be the likely profitability of shale in Mexico,” said Luis Miguel Labardini, a partner of the Mexico City-based Marcos y Asociados consultancy.