On August 24, 2016, the National Hydrocarbons Commission (“CNH”) called for the Second Tender related to Round 2, identified as CNH-R02-L02/2016, for awarding exploration and extraction license contracts with respect to twelve (12) onshore areas.
According to the call and the documents published by CNH, out of the areas to be tendered, nine are located in the region known as Cuenca de Burgos in the north of Mexico, two additional (2) areas are located in the region known as Cinturon de Plegado of Chiapas and one is located in a region known as Cuencas del Sureste.
The main resources of these tendered blocks are: (i) wet gas, (ii) dry gas, (iii) associated oil and gas. The total surface to be tendered is 5,066.0 Km2 and the potential resources are estimated in 643 billion barrels of crude equivalent oil. It must be taken into account that some of the extraction tendered blocks already include different fields.
The contractual strategy to be implemented for the above-mentioned areas will be to enter into license contracts and each contract will have an initial term of 30 years with two renewal periods of 5 years each.
The most relevant aspects of the guidelines to participate in the tender procedure are: (i) experience as operator in the 2012-2016 period in at least three hydrocarbons exploration and/or extraction projects, or, capital investments in hydrocarbons exploration and/or extraction projects of at least US$250 million; and (iii) operator must prove that has a net worth of at least US$500 million.
Pursuant to the bidding schedule, the most relevant dates are:
| Final bidding schedule | March 8, 2017 |
| Period to apply for, and pay access to virtual data room | September 5, 2016 through December 5, 2016 |
| Access to virtual data room | September 5, 2016 through April 4, 2017 |
| Period to visit contractual areas | December 5, 2016 through March 3, 2017 |
| First clarification stage | August 24, 2016 through November 28, 2016 |
| Second clarification stage | August 24, 2016 through December 12, 2016 |
| Third clarification stage | August 24, 2016 through March 8, 2017 |
| Registration fee payment and pre-eligibility | September 5, 2016 through December 8, 2016 |
| Receipt of pre–eligibility documents | December 19, 2016 through December 23, 2016 |
| Review of pre-eligibility documents | January 1, 2017 through March 03, 2017 |
| Pre- eligible companies publication | March 8, 2017 |
| Period to request CNH approval to incorporate financial non-pre-eligible partners in bidder´s structure | March 9, 2017 through March 10, 2017 |
| Filing proposals | March 5, 2017 |
The lawyers of the energy, mining and infrastructure area of our firm are available for any questions or comments on the above.
YOURS TRULY
| Daniel del Rio | delrio@basham.com.mx |
| Juan Carlos Serra | serra@basham.com.mx |
| Jorge Escobedo | jescobedo@basham.com.mx |
| Alejandra Pages | apages@basham.com.mx |
Mexico City, August 29th 2016.
