Mexico’s state oil giant Pemex is struggling to reverse a years-long decline in oil and gas production while trying not to incur additional liabilities on top of its already massive pile of $100 billion debt that makes it the world’s most indebted energy firm.  

Petroleos Mexicanos, as Pemex is officially known, has received major government support this year under Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Unlike her predecessor and mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, incumbent President Sheinbaum has signaled openness to foreign firms participating in the Mexican upstream sector, although Pemex still keeps majority stakes in joint projects.

This year, Sheinbaum’s administration has launched a new contract framework for joint ventures, the so-called mixed contracts. In mixed development allocations, Pemex can enter into an agreement with one or more private firms.

Pemex has just awarded the first five of 11 planned joint venture contracts for this year, Reuters reported this week, citing sources with knowledge of the development and a document it has seen.

None of these contracts, however, were awarded to a major international firm. All five agreements for onshore development blocks were with four little known local companies—Consorcio Petrolero 5M del Golfo, Geolis, Petrolera Miahuapan, and Cesigsa, according to the document Reuters has reviewed.

Related: Oil Executives Predict Another Dull Year In 2026

These small domestic players are unlikely to move the needle in Pemex’s quest to stop production declines and cash bleeds, analysts say.

True, Pemex signed earlier this year a $1.99 billion deal with Carlos Slim’s Grupo Carso, which will drill 32 wells in three years. Australia’s Woodside Energy, which inherited the huge offshore Trion field in the Perdido Fold Belt in its merger with BHP Petroleum, has made a final investment decision to develop the resource, with first oil targeted for 2028.

Despite touting interest from some oil majors, Pemex appears to have failed to attract big international companies to the new joint venture contracts.

Under López Obrador, foreign investors backed off Mexico as the former president sought a “Mexico first” energy policy and undid most of the open-market reforms in the energy sector of his predecessor Enrique Pena Nieto that had attracted majors to the count

Mexico’s state oil giant Pemex is struggling to reverse a years-long decline in oil and gas production while trying not to incur additional liabilities on top of its already massive pile of $100 billion debt that makes it the world’s most indebted energy firm.  

Petroleos Mexicanos, as Pemex is officially known, has received major government support this year under Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Unlike her predecessor and mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, incumbent President Sheinbaum has signaled openness to foreign firms participating in the Mexican upstream sector, although Pemex still keeps majority stakes in joint projects.

This year, Sheinbaum’s administration has launched a new contract framework for joint ventures, the so-called mixed contracts. In mixed development allocations, Pemex can enter into an agreement with one or more private firms.

Pemex has just awarded the first five of 11 planned joint venture contracts for this year, Reuters reported this week, citing sources with knowledge of the development and a document it has seen.

None of these contracts, however, were awarded to a major international firm. All five agreements for onshore development blocks were with four little known local companies—Consorcio Petrolero 5M del Golfo, Geolis, Petrolera Miahuapan, and Cesigsa, according to the document Reuters has reviewed.

Related: Oil Executives Predict Another Dull Year In 2026

These small domestic players are unlikely to move the needle in Pemex’s quest to stop production declines and cash bleeds, analysts say.

True, Pemex signed earlier this year a $1.99 billion deal with Carlos Slim’s Grupo Carso, which will drill 32 wells in three years. Australia’s Woodside Energy, which inherited the huge offshore Trion field in the Perdido Fold Belt in its merger with BHP Petroleum, has made a final investment decision to develop the resource, with first oil targeted for 2028.

Despite touting interest from some oil majors, Pemex appears to have failed to attract big international companies to the new joint venture contracts.

Under López Obrador, foreign investors backed off Mexico as the former president sought a “Mexico first” energy policy and undid most of the open-market reforms in the energy sector of his predecessor Enrique Pena Nieto that had attracted majors to the count