Ku-Maloob-Zaap () is an
oil field
A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations.
Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...
in
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. It is made up of three relatively large fields, Ku, Maloob, and Zaap, which are located to the immediate northwest of the Cantarell field. The field lies in of water.
Ku-Maloob-Zaap is located offshore in the
Bay of Campeche
The Bay of Campeche ( es, Bahía de Campeche), or Campeche Sound, is a bight (geography), bight in the southern area of the Gulf of Mexico, forming the north side of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. It is surrounded on three sides by the Mexico, Mexic ...
, off the coast of Tabasco, from
Ciudad del Carmen
Ciudad del Carmen is a city in the southwest of the Mexican state of Campeche. Ciudad del Carmen is located at on the southwest of Carmen Island, which stands in the Laguna de Términos on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. , Ciudad del Carmen ha ...
. It was discovered by
PEMEX
Pemex (a portmanteau of Petróleos Mexicanos, which translates to ''Mexican Petroleum'' in English; ) is the Mexican state-owned petroleum company managed and operated by the Mexican government. It was formed in 1938 by nationalization and expr ...
, Mexico's national oil company, in 1979. It covers an area of , and includes five fields: Ku, Maloob, Zaap, Bacab, Lum and Zazil-Ha.
The Ku, Maloob, and Zaap fields produce from the Kimmeridgian, Lower Paleocene-Upper Cretaceous, and Middle Eocene reservoirs. Total reserves of the field have been put at 4.9 billion barrels.
Production history
The Ku field was discovered in 1980, the Maloob field in 1984 and Zaap in 1991. First oil from the Ku field was produced in 1981.
The KMZ development included drilling 82 wells, four of which are nitrogen injectors and installation of 17
oil platform
An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platfor ...
s: seven drilling, four production, four accommodation, one telecommunication and one processing. There are 42
oil pipeline
Pipeline transport is the long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas through a system of pipes—a pipeline—typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countr ...
s of to transport the oil produced. It was expected that by 2011, production would reach of oil and of
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
.
This target was met by November 2009 when oil production reached . The field produced crude oil in 2010. Production rose to in November 2015. This new rate of production and the decline in production at the
Cantarell Field
Cantarell Field or Cantarell Complex is an supergiant offshore oil field in Mexico. It was discovered in 1976 after oil stains were noticed by a fisherman, Rudesindo Cantarell Jimenez, in 1972. It was placed on nitrogen injection in 2000, and pr ...
made Ku-Maloob-Zaap Mexico's most productive oil field.
KMZ is among the company’s most profitable producing assets, according to Welligence Energy Analytics. Pemex reported average production costs of $10.37/boe at KMZ as of end-2019.
On 2 July 2021, Mexico's state-owned oil company
PEMEX
Pemex (a portmanteau of Petróleos Mexicanos, which translates to ''Mexican Petroleum'' in English; ) is the Mexican state-owned petroleum company managed and operated by the Mexican government. It was formed in 1938 by nationalization and expr ...
suffered an undersea gas pipeline rupture in the Ku-Maloob-Zaap field. The leak and subsequent fire lasted for five hours.
Then, in August, an explosion and fire on the E-Ku-A2 platform killed at least five workers and injured more. This platform is also part of the Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex.
Production decline
Production in the Ku-Maloob-Zaap fields has entered a declining phase. Production declined to in July 2019. Subsequently production plunged to in July 2020. The uncertainty created by Covid-19 contributed to the decline in production. The production recovered to in 2021.
The field produced in 2022 which is roughly 40% of Pemex total output.
To maintain production in the Ku Maloob Zaap field, PEMEX has adopted techniques such as management of production limits and nitrogen injection.
See also
*
List of oil fields
This list of oil fields includes some major oil fields of the past and present.
The list is incomplete; there are more than 25,000 oil and gas fields of all sizes in the world. However, 94% of known oil is concentrated in fewer than 1500 giant ...
References
External links
Proyecto Ku-Maloob-Zaap, en la Sonda de Campeche
{{coord missing, Gulf of Mexico
Oil fields in Mexico
Pemex
Gulf Coast of Mexico
Petroleum industry in the Gulf of Mexico
Geography of Campeche