[3] Mexican authorities expected the decline to continue in future, and were pessimistic that it could be raised back to previous levels even with foreign investment.
As a result, Pemex has insufficient capital to develop new and more expensive resources on its own, and cannot take on foreign partners to supply money and technology it lacks.
[5] To address some of these problems, in September 2007, Mexico’s Congress approved reforms including a reduction in the taxes levied on Pemex.
[3] However, in January 2008, Pemex said that the oil production rate at Cantarell had fallen to 811,000 barrels per day (129,000 m3/d) by December 2008, a decline of 36 percent from a year earlier.
[7] In February 2009, DeGolyer and MacNaughton estimated that the Chicontepec Field had 139 billion barrels of oil in place, but that there was as yet no technical way to recover it.
[8] Some government officials were unhappy with the results at Chicontepec, expressing concern that costs were higher and oil production lower than expected.