Current Energy Research in Mexico

The Fracture Research and Application Consortium (FRAC) Industrial Associate program has an active field-based program of structural geology, stratigraphy, and diagenesis research underway in northeastern Mexico. [Link to FRAC Website]

The Bureau and Pemex, the national oil company of Mexico, are currently working together to study Tertiary-age basins in southern Mexico. Results of this study will help guide PEMEX exploration strategies to meet Mexico’s increasing demand for natural gas resources. This project, to our knowledge the first of its kind to be awarded to a U.S. university, will also contribute to our understanding of the geology of a little-known part of the Gulf of Mexico. Bureau scientists involved in this basin research are William A. Ambrose, Luís Sanchez Barreda, Jerome A. Bellian, Dallas B. Dunlap, Shirley P. Dutton, Khaled Fouad, Edgar H. Guevara, Rebecca Harrington-Jones, Mark H. Holtz, David C. Jennette, Shinichi Sakurai, and Timothy F. Wawrzyniec.

This project brings together a collaborative team of Pemex and Bureau researchers who are carrying out an integrated geoscience interpretation of the data.

Previous Energy Research in Mexico

Burgos Basin
An integrated analysis of the Burgos Basin in Mexico was conducted in 1999 by Bureau researchers working in close partnership with Pemex geologists. The goal was to establish the stratigraphic framework of the Tertiary section in the basin prior to defining exploration paths. Bureau geologists and petrophysicists also worked to define reservoir architecture and petrophysical attributes of five major fields in the northern Burgos Basin. Bureau scientists involved in this project included William A. Ambrose, and L. Frank Brown, Jr.