MAURO NOGARIN, Contributing Editor
According to Barclays Global E&P report, Latin American companies are expected to lead the way in 2013. Capital spending is forecast to increase by 15% in the region (compared to a 17% growth in 2012), driven by a significant increase in activity by Pemex in Mexico, an aggressive post-election capital investment program in PDVSA in Venezuela and Petrobras’s continued capital investment in its pre-salt development plan in Brazil. Spending gains are expected to be led by significant pickups in activity in Mexico (Pemex up 21%), Venezuala (PDVSA up 46%), and Brazil (Petrobras up by 8%).
Mexico’s Pemex, the national oil company, has focused its oil exploration and exploitation strategy on reserves in the southeast of the country, because the firm already has infrastructure in place that permits it to shorten the development time from discovery to production. As a consequence of deepwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, it has confirmed the existence of light oil deposits in the Cinturon Plegado Perdido area with its exploratory wells, Trion-1 and Supremus-1. Toward the end of 2012, Pemex’s exploratory activity was concentrated in the Sabinas and Burgos areas in the north of the country, and the Sureste Marino and Terrestre basins, as well as the deepwater projects in Area Perdida and Gulf of Mexico B, with which it hopes to meet its goals of increasing proven reserves for 2012–2013.
Pemex drilled 1,059 wells between January and October 2012, which included 1,027 development wells and 32 exploratory wells. This represents a 34.1% increase over 2011, due mainly to increased activity in the Agua Fría-Coapechaca-Tajín area in Aceite Terciario del Golfo production field, the San Ramon, Los Soldados and Ogarrio camps in the Cinco Presidentes production area, as well as Samaria field in the Samaria-Luna production area.
Drilling in Argentina should hold its own this year with 1,150 new wells, and most of that will be development drilling. Although it is South America’s number one gas producer, and a significant oil producer, output has declined for several years, putting a squeeze on exports. However, Argentina ranks third in the world, behind China and the U.S. in potentially recoverable shale-gas reserves, with 774 Tcf, according to EIA.
Pan American Energy signed a deal with the government to invest $3.4 billion between 2013 and 2017 to boost natural gas exploration and production in exchange for being able to charge higher prices. The company said it will boost its price for natural gas to $7.50/MMBtu, and reached a similar deal with state-run oil company YPF.
In Colombia, during the last half of 2012 (July through December), the oil companies working in the country completed 82 exploratory wells of the 144 planned, an increase in drilling activity compared to the previous year (126 wells). According to information from ANH, the success rate of wells drilled in the first half of the year, between January and June was 49%. Reportedly, 30 wells were producers, 21 were test wells and 31 were dry holes.
Ecopetrol S.A. has an exploratory budget of US$974 million for 2013, with which it plans to drill 19 exploratory wells, three appraisal wells and 11 development wells, mostly in the Llanos Orientales (eastern plains). It also plans a number of exploratory wells throughout the Magdalena Valley and Caribbean coast.
In Venezuela, according to statistics presented by the Venezuelan government to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), as of November 2012, production was 2.8 million bopd, which is the same level of production reported for 2011. There was a small drop in production to 2.7 million bopd during the first quarter of 2012. According to the OPEC report, Venezuela has 14,915 producing wells.
Eulogio del Pino, Vice President of Exploration and Production for PDVSA, said that government investment this year will be higher and will reach $18 billion. This compares to the $4 billion that was spent prior to 2000, the beginning of the Chavez administration.
PDVSA had to import an average 139,300 bpd of fuel between January and October, which represents an increase of 109% over imports in 2011, which were 66,000 bpd.
In Brazil, according to the Ministry of Energy, Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo regions account for almost the entirety of the oil and gas production in the country, with the rest of the nation contributing only 2.7% of total production in 2012. Altogether, only 443 total wells were drilled in 2012, including exploratory and production wells, versus the 640 wells drilled in 2011.
New discoveries reported between June and August were 57% higher than the previous year. 35 discoveries were reported during this third quarter of the year, 20 of which were on land and 15 offshore. Of these new discoveries recorded, 11 were oil, 14 were gas and 11 were a mix of oil and gas.
Drilling activity in Ecuador has been on the rise since 2007, having doubled the number of wells drilled in five years. In 2012, some 227 production wells were completed, most in mature oil fields that have an average production age of 30 years. The maturity of these oil fields is reflected in the average production rate per well, which in 2011 was about 160 bopd, distributed over 3,150 producing wells. 
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