Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was cheered in recent days by the news of the Quesqui discovery in his home state of Tabasco, described by state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) as “gigantic” and the company’s largest since 1987.

Quesqui could hold more than 500 million boe in 3P reserves, Pemex said in a statement.

Pemex CEO Octavio Romero Oropeza said that the company’s current plans are to drill 11 new wells next year to hit 69,000 b/d of crude and approximately 300 MMcf/d of natural gas at the onshore field, with those figures reaching 110,000 b/d and 410 MMcf/d by 2021.

The company will have two years in which to establish the dimensions and importance of Quesqui to the upstream regulator, the Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos (CNH), Ramses Pech, the CEO of the Tabasco-based Caraiva consultancy, told NGI’s Mexico GPI.

“The 500 million boe of the initial Pemex announcement on Quesquí will not necessarily be recovered,” he added. “The development plan will have to provide that calculation.”

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