State-owned oil monopoly Pemex has made the biggest discovery of petroleum in Mexico in the last decade, President Felipe Calderon announced on Sunday. Initial estimates suggest the Navegante 1 field in Tabasco will yield from 500 million to one billion barrels of crude oil.
With output of 2.5 million barrels per day, Pemex is the world’s fourth largest oil producer and the sole biggest contributor to Mexico’s federal budget. Yet production has fallen sharply since peaking at almost 3.4 million barrels per day in 2004, with insufficient investment and mismanagement blamed for rising inefficiency.