Italian energy company Eni announced the discovery of an oil field some 63 kilometers off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the Sureste Basin. 

In a press release published on Monday, the company said that preliminary estimates indicate the oil field could contain 300 to 400 million barrels equivalent (Mboe) of petroleum and associated gas.

The discovery occurred in an exploration block called Block 9, a joint venture between Eni as operator with a 50% stake, and Repsol, a Spanish firm, with the remaining 50%.

Eni has operated in Mexico since 2006. In 2015, it established its wholly-owned subsidiary Eni Mexico. It currently holds rights in eight exploration and production blocks in the Sureste Basin in the Gulf of Mexico and acts as operator in seven.

The discovery is the latest of several oil fields discovered in Eni-operated Blocks 7 and 10 in the same area of the Gulf of Mexico. Just last year, Eni announced the discovery of an oil field that could contain 200 million barrels of crude oil. 

“This successful result … confirms the value of Eni’s asset portfolio in the Sureste Basin,” Eni announced in the press release. “The overall estimate of resources in place currently exceeds 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (Bboe) which allows Eni to advance with the studies towards a potential future ‘Hub’ development,” the release continued..

In 2019, Eni became the first foreign energy company to extract oil in Mexico in 80 years, four years after the previous administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto approved an energy reform allowing private companies to extract crude oil in Mexico. 

Eni is currently the largest private operator in the country, having extracted 748,000 barrels of crude oil in the past 57 months.   

With reports from El Economista