Shell, Chevron And Others May Bid For $8 Billion Mexican Gas Field

Royal Dutch Shell Group, ChevronTexaco, and other companies may bid for contracts worth eight billion dollars to operate a Mexican natural gas field for more than a decade, the state owned oil company has said in a statement.

Petroleos Mexicanos has met with seventy five companies interested in the six contracts and expects as many as thirty companies to submit bids at the start of the auction, which may be as soon as November, Luis Ramirez, general director of the company's exploration and production division, said at a news conference.

Pemex, as the company is known, is relying on foreign oil companies to provide the technology and expertise Mexico lacks to increase the supply of gas at pace with expected nine percent annual growth in demand, coming mostly from the country's electricity generators, which burn both gas and coal.

“Pemex is at its capacity limit for operations,” Ramirez said. “Our principal goal with these projects is to diminish Mexico's growing dependence on imported gas.”

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