Mexico’s State Oil Company Told U.S. Regulators Its Reserves Last Nine More Years

Energy

Key Facts

—The number. Pemex reported a reserves-to-production ratio of 9.1 years for proved reserves at the end of 2025.

—The split. Total proved reserves rose 0.3 percent. Proved crude, condensate and liquefiable hydrocarbons fell 2.6 percent to 5,352 million barrels.

—The fields. The filing names Zaap, Quesqui, Tupilco Profundo, Xanab and Pokche as sitting in assets in natural decline.

—The long fall. Total proved reserves stood at 13,868 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2013. They now stand at 7,472 million, a drop of 46 percent.

—The one good number. The reserve replacement rate reached 102.6 percent in 2025, up from 96.6 percent the year before.

—The retreat. Pemex says it will favour shallow water and onshore over deepwater, which it calls costly and long-term.

Pemex proved reserves would sustain current output for a little over nine years, the company told the American securities regulator. That sentence is doing more work than any production statistic.

Mexico’s state oil company files an annual report with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission because it borrows in dollars. The document is a legal obligation, and its candour reflects that.

In it, Pemex states that some of its existing oil and gas fields are mature, and that reserves and production may decline as those reserves are depleted. It then names them.

What Pemex proved reserves actually show

Five fields appear on the list: Zaap, Quesqui, Tupilco Profundo, Xanab and Pokche. Each sits in an asset the company describes as being in natural decline.

Zaap belongs to the Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex in the Campeche Sound, an asset this newspaper has reported contributes about a third of Pemex’s total output. Xanab and Pokche lie in shallow water off the coast of Tabasco.

Quesqui is the largest condensate producer in the portfolio. This newspaper reported two years ago that Quesqui and the Ku field were both already in decline.

Proved reserves are those with a ninety percent probability of extraction under current economic and operating conditions. They are the most conservative measure a company publishes, which is why the filing matters.

The headline that hides the decline

Coverage of the filing reported that total proved reserves rose in 2025, by twenty-one million barrels of oil equivalent, or three tenths of one percent.

That figure combines crude, condensate and dry gas expressed as liquid equivalent. Separate the oil from the gas and the picture inverts.

Proved reserves of crude oil, condensate and liquefiable hydrocarbons fell two point six percent last year, to five thousand three hundred and fifty-two million barrels. The gas rose; the oil fell.

A reader shown only the aggregate would conclude the company had stabilised. The aggregate is true and the conclusion is wrong.

The distinction is not academic. Mexico’s fiscal machinery and its refineries were built around crude, and a barrel of gas equivalent does not substitute for a barrel of oil in either.

How long Pemex proved reserves last

The reserves-to-production ratio answers that directly. Pemex puts it at nine point one years for proved reserves as of the last day of 2025.

Check it against the company’s own guidance. Pemex expects to produce one point six five million barrels a day of liquid hydrocarbons this year, which is roughly six hundred and two million barrels over twelve months.

Divide the oil reserves by that annual rate and the answer is eight years and nine months. The arithmetic holds, and neither number describes an emergency this year.

What it describes is a company with less than a decade of visibility on the asset that funds it. Pemex warns the regulator that a sustained fall in reserves and production could hurt its operating results and financial condition.

That warning is not rhetorical for a Mexican government. Oil revenue has underwritten public spending for decades, and this newspaper has reported the company carrying debts of roughly one hundred billion dollars.

One good number, and a strategic contradiction

There is a genuine improvement in the filing. In 2025 the reserve replacement rate reached one hundred and two point six percent, meaning Pemex booked slightly more than it pumped.

The year before it managed only ninety-six point six percent, replacing less than it extracted. Crossing back above one hundred is the difference between shrinking and standing still.

Standing still does not rebuild a base that halved. Reserves peaked at nearly fourteen thousand million barrels of oil equivalent in 2013, bottomed in 2019, and have since grown at about one percent a year.

The collapse was steepest before that trough. Between 2013 and 2019 proved reserves fell at roughly ten percent a year, and the recovery since has run at about one tenth of that pace.

Meanwhile the filing signals a retreat from deepwater, which Pemex calls costly and long-term, in favour of shallow water and onshore drilling that delivers sooner. Mexico is reported to be preparing an agreement with Petrobras, whose entire competitive advantage is deepwater.

Is Mexico running out of oil?

Not in any immediate sense, but the margin has narrowed considerably. Pemex reports a reserves-to-production ratio of nine point one years for proved reserves, which measures how long current output could be sustained from reserves already booked rather than predicting the date the oil physically ends.

Did Pemex reserves grow or shrink last year?

Both, depending on what is counted. Total proved reserves including dry gas rose three tenths of one percent, while proved reserves of crude oil, condensate and liquefiable hydrocarbons fell two point six percent, so the increase in the headline figure was driven by gas rather than oil.

What is a reserve replacement rate?

It measures how many barrels a company adds through exploration and revision for every barrel it produces. Pemex reached one hundred and two point six percent in 2025, adding slightly more than it extracted, against ninety-six point six percent in 2024 when it fell short.