Petrobras and Mexico's Pemex signed a cooperation agreement on June 23 to study possible joint projects, with deepwater oil exploration in the Mexican portion of the Gulf of Mexico among the main priorities.
The memorandum of understanding covers exploration and production, recovery of declining fields, refining, petrochemicals, fertilizers and energy-transition projects. According to Seu Dinheiro, the document is valid for two years and can be renewed, but it does not create a joint venture or commit either company to specific investment.
The Pre-Salt Question
Petrobras wants to bring to Mexico part of the technical experience it built in Brazil's pre-salt, a group of offshore reserves found beneath a thick layer of salt along the southeastern coast. Those reserves helped make oil Brazil's leading export product, according to Folha de S.Paulo.
Petrobras president Magda Chambriard said the Mexican Gulf should be examined with a different approach. She argued that it was not credible to assume all the oil in the Gulf of Mexico had remained only on the U.S. side, where development and investment were more advanced over many years.
Chambriard said Petrobras could apply seismic technologies, data processing and interpretation, and drilling techniques developed in Brazil. She also stressed that concrete projects and investments will depend on joint studies and have no defined timetable.
Pemex's Decline
The agreement comes as Pemex faces years of operational deterioration, financial strain and high debt. Folha reported that Mexican oil production fell from about 3.5 million barrels per day in the first half of the 2000s to less than 2 million barrels per day.
One example is Cantarell, the giant shallow-water field discovered off Mexico's coast in 1976. It produced more than 2 million barrels per day in the early 2000s, more than twice the output of Búzios, Brazil's largest pre-salt field, but fell to about 100,000 barrels per day last year after natural decline and limited investment in recovery technology or adjacent reserves, according to Folha.
Folha also reported that Pemex ended 2025 with a loss of US$2.5 billion, listed by the newspaper as R$13 billion, and debt of US$85 billion, listed as R$450 billion. Pemex director-general Juan Carlos Carpio Fragoso said the company's position was improving and that better cash flow had allowed resources to move toward long-term investment.
Industrial Agenda
The cooperation agenda extends beyond exploration. The companies may study mature-field revitalization, seismic reprocessing, deepwater and ultra-deepwater opportunities, heavy and extra-heavy oil, offshore operations, gas processing, refinery efficiency, carbon capture and lower-carbon fuels.
The two sources also point to an unresolved industrial problem between Pemex and Brazilian interests in Mexico. Petrobras operates in the country through Braskem, where it is a partner of the IG4 group, according to Folha. Folha reported that Braskem's petrochemical operations have been hurt by natural-gas supply problems from Pemex, which it says has failed to meet its supply contract since 2018.
Seu Dinheiro identified the affected operation as Braskem Idesa, a joint venture involving Brazil's Braskem and Mexico's Carso group. It reported that the company has never operated at full capacity since 2016 because of shortages of feedstock supplied by Pemex, and that it opened a maritime import terminal last year to bring inputs from the United States.
Brazilian and Mexican officials presented the memorandum as part of a broader rapprochement between the governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of the Workers' Party (PT), and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Chambriard said Lula backed the approach after Petrobras raised the idea, and Mexican Energy Secretary Juan José Vidal Amaro called the agreement an opportunity to combine the companies' capacities and strengths.