Contract

In what will be the largest auction of its type, Mexico’s state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) is to offer seven farm-out license contracts in southeastern Mexico, the industry regulator, the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) agreed Thursday.

San Antonio, TX-based Lewis Energy Group has inked an oilfield services (OFS) contract to evaluate and develop an unconventional natural gas project owned by Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) in northeast Mexico.

Mexico’s upstream regulator has awarded oil and natural gasmarketing services contracts to Trafigura Group Pte Ltd. and CFEnergia.

The expiring October natural gas contract is set to open 2 cents higher Wednesday morning at $2.94 as traders factor in still warmer near-term temperatures and likely expiration day short-covering. Overnight oil markets were mixed.

KP Engineering LP(KPE) has been awarded a contract valued in excess of $100 million by Targa Pipeline Mid-Continent WestTex LLC, a subsidiary of Targa Resources Corp., to provide engineering, procurement and construction for a 200 MMcf/d natural gas cryogenic processing facility in the Permian Basin of West Texas. The facility, to be built near Midkiff, is to include a 5,000 b/d condensate stabilizer, low-pressure compression, intermediate compression, custody transfer metering, slug catchers and a control system for processing raw gas by extracting natural gas liquids and removing impurities.

New natural gas export capabilities and growing domestic consumption will help Henry Hub natural gas spot prices increase from an average of $3.16/MMBtu this year to $3.41/MMBtu in 2018, according to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latestShort-Term Energy Outlook (STEO).

Mexico’s Comision Reguladora de Energia (CRE) on Feb. 2 launched the first phase of the program to have state oil company Pemex release 70% of its natural gas supply contracts.

Mexican energy regulatory authorities have launched the program for state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) to surrender natural gas supply contracts amounting to 70% of its total sales volume. The program, begun late last week, will help private-sector companies gain market share and begin competing with Pemex.

In the story “Michigan Backs DTE Electric Contract With Nexus, But Denies Cost Recovery Plans,” NGI incorrectly reported that the utility’s cost-recovery plans were denied when, in fact, the decision was deferred.