Shell Sweeps Nine Of 19 Blocks Awarded In Mexico Oil Auction

Mexico faces stiff competition from Brazil and other regional rivals keen to attract cash from global oil majors. Argentina, Uruguay and Ecuador are also auctioning oil and gas fields this year.

Pena Nieto's 2013 energy reform was his highest-profile economic initiative, aimed at attracting hundreds of billions of dollars of investment to turn around a state-run oil industry in decline. The results of previous auctions to attract foreign investment were mixed.

Firms that won in the previous auctions have pledged investments of $61 billion. But Mexico needs 10 times that amount to raise oil output back to 2004 levels, the country's Energy Secretary Pedro Joaquin Coldwell said on Tuesday.

Some of the firms that won in previous auctions have made big finds, adding over 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent to reserves.

Mexico is expected to hold its first shale oil and gas auction by the end of 2018, the head of the country's oil regulator said on Wednesday, potentially opening up one of the world's top reserves of unconventional energy.

(Additional reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez in Mexico City, Alexandra Alper in Rio de Janeiro, Nidhi Verma in New Delhi and Osamu Tsukimori in Tokyo; Writing by Simon Webb; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Andrew Hay)