On September 18, 2017, the Mexican government, through the Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos (National Hydrocarbons Commission or “CNH”), commenced an international tender process to grant the right to enter into a license agreement in partnership with the productive state-owned enterprise PEMEX Exploración y Producción, to pursue upstream activities in deep waters in the Nobilis-Maximino.

The areas up for bid, AE-0077-M-Cinturón Plegado Perdido-03, AE-0082-2M-Cinturón Plegado Perdido-8 and AE-0110-Cinturón Plegado Perdido-09 (Nobilis-Maximino), are former assignation contracts migrated into exploration and extraction agreements as part of the PEMEX business plan 2017-2021 and pursuant to the recent Energy Reform.

The international tender process identified as CNH-A5-Nobilis-Maximino/2017 is directed to domestic and foreign private companies and comprises the auctioning of a 1,509.421 sq. km area located on the coast of the state of Tamaulipas in the exclusive economic zone of the Gulf of Mexico.

The pre-qualification documents are required to be filed by the interested parties between November 6 and 10, 2017 and pre-qualified bidders will be announced on December 20, 2017. The bids will be due and opened on June 19, 2017, and the award will take place on January 31, 2018.

Special thanks to Ana María Alpízar, Shearman & Sterling Visiting Attorney, for her assistance with this alert.