RE:a good readhere's a clip from another articlle dated jan 30/2018.
Pushing Pemex
In its efforts to break Pemex's monopoly and attract international oil firms, the Mexican government has charted a more aggressive reform than others Latin American countries.
To encourage oil service and mapping firms to work quickly and extensively, the government gave them licenses for up to 12 years to sell data they collect.
"On the American side (of the Gulf of Mexico), there is a tonne of information. On the Mexican side, very little. So they had to have a solution, a way to speed it up," Marcio Felix, Brazil's oil and gas secretary, said on Monday.
The Mexican regulator, the National Hydrocarbon Commission (CNH), opened all of Pemex's data to seismic firms, licensing them to reprocess and sell it.
In countries including Brazil and Venezuela, state-run oil companies have kept most of their seismic data from rivals, giving them an advantage in areas where they are considered strong.
"Pemex has had to give up a lot to make the reform work," said Luis Vierma, exploration and production consultant and former vice-president of Venezuela's PDVSA.
The CNH has said the data, which includes information from 30,000 oil and gas wells, belongs to the country, not Pemex.
For Pena Nieto's government, the stakes are high. Energy reform was one of its top economic priorities, and the administration wants to show progress ahead of a presidential election in July.
Mexico faces stiff competition from other Latin American countries keen to attract investment from energy firms. Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay and Argentina are set to auction oil and gas blocks this year.
That has Mexico determined to make the auctions successful - even if it means giving up Pemex's secrets.
"Only one player (Pemex) gains if the geological information is kept confidential," said Horacio Cuenca, a research director at consultancy Wood Mackenzie. "The whole country will benefit from opening up the data to secure equal access and accuracy."
cheers ferret