The Sureste Basin or Salinas-Sureste Basin is a hydrocarbon province located in southeast

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. The basin covers an area of and comprises proven reserves of 50 billion barrels of

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

. Due to recent successful explorations, the area has been called a Super Basin. The first

oil exploration Hydrocarbon exploration (or oil and gas exploration) is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for hydrocarbon deposits, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth's crust using petroleum geology. Exploration methods V ...

s in the onshore Sureste Basin started in 1907. Offshore explorations started in the mid 20th century. Improvement of drilling techniques in the 1970s allowed the discovering of giant oil fields, such as Cantarell. Since 2015, oil companies have started exploration in deep waters. In 2017, the

Zama oil field The Zama Oil Field is an oil field located 60 km off the coast of Tabasco, Mexico, in the Block 7 of the Sureste Basin. It was discovered in July 2017 by Talos Energy’s Zama-1 well. It’s estimated to hold up to two billion barrels of oil. ...

was discovered.

Description

Sureste Basin covers an area of , that extends from the Chiapas fold belt in the onshore southern limit, to the base of the Campeche Slope in the deep-waters region. It includes prolific oil sub-basins such as Salina, Sonda de Campeche, and Campeche-Tabasco. Deposits range from the late

Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

ages. It's described as a highly structural salt basin.

Other Names

The basin has been previously named Campeche Basin (Cuenca de Campeche), Isthmian Salt Basin (Cuenca de Salina del Istmo) and Cuenca Salina (Salt Basin). Also, the northern part of the basin has been named separately as Yucatán Salt Basin, despite there are not geological separation. The Mexican National Commission of Hydrocarbons (Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos, CNH) and the Mexican state-owned oil company

PEMEX Pemex (a portmanteau of Petróleos Mexicanos, which translates to ''Mexican Petroleum'' in English; ) is the Mexico, Mexican State ownership, state-owned Petroleum industry, petroleum corporation managed and operated by the government of Mexico, ...

adopted the name Sureste Basin.

Oil Explorations

In the onshore and shallow-water area of the Sureste Basin, there had been made around 140 oil discoveries until 2017. However, in the deep waters area of the basin, there had been made only 12 exploration wildcats. In 2017, proven reserves of the Sureste Basin were over 50 billion barrels of oil. First oil discoveries were made in onshore

Tabasco Tabasco, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco, is one of the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into Municipalities of Tabasco, 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa. It i ...

wildcatter A wildcatter is an individual who drills wildcat wells, which are exploration oil wells drilled in areas not known to be oil fields. Notable wildcatters include Glenn McCarthy, Thomas Baker Slick Sr., Mike Benedum, Joe Trees, Clem S. Clark ...

s following oil seepage around the flanks of onshore surface piercing. Due to the complex salt-core geology of the region, these first efforts were cautious. The Filisola oil field was the first discovery in the area, made in 1907, and followed by the Ixhuatlán oil field in 1911. By 1930, around 50 exploration wildcats were made, allowing the discovery of several oil fields such as Tupilco, Tonala, and Nuevo Teapa. Offshore exploration started in 1949 after a marine geophysical survey of the

Coatzacoalcos Coatzacoalcos (; formerly known as Puerto México; ; Zapotec: ; Popoluca: ''Puertu'') is a major port city in the southern part of the Mexican state of Veracruz, mostly on the western side of the Coatzacoalcos River estuary, on the Bay of Ca ...

and Grijalva rivers was acquired. In 1959, the Santa Ana field was discovered offshore. 2D seismic technology and better deep drilling techniques allowed the discovering of giant oil fields in the 1970s, such as Cactus, Samaria, Cunducuan, Iride, and Cantarell. Since 2014, oil companies have explored the deep-water extension with 3D seismic technology. In 2017,

was discovered. In 2020, Italian-based oil company

Eni Eni is an Italian oil and gas corporation. Eni or ENI may refer to: Businesses and organisations * Escuela Nacional de Inteligencia, the Argentine intelligence academy * Groupe des écoles nationales d’ingénieurs (Groupe ENI), a French engi ...

announced its plans to invest $130 million for drilling oil and gas explorations wells in the Sureste Basin.

References

{{coord, 19.090, -92.314, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:MX, display=title Geography of Mexico Oil exploration

Description

Other Names

Oil Explorations

See also

References