Headquartered in Villahermosa, the capital city of Tabasco State, Petrofac has three assets in Mexico: Santuario, Magallanes and Arenque. The team in Villahermosa oversees ongoing operations and maintenance for Santuario and Magallanes, two mature onshore fields located in Tabasco. They also provide business services to the Arenque field, situated in the Gulf of Mexico 30 km offshore from Tampico, where Petrofac runs the field development and operations, including subsurface and facilities engineering and drilling. The corporate office is based in Mexico City.

Mario Rueda, Production, Maintenance and Metering Manager, has worked at Petrofac for four and a half years. “My responsibilities include handling daily issues at the fields, ensuring that all our equipment is up and running in order to achieve maximum production,” he says. “I also manage some relationships with the client and our partners.” What does he enjoy most? “Getting to know people from other countries. I’m Colombian and work with Mexicans, French and British people, it’s interesting to learn more about their backgrounds. I also manage people who are starting out in their careers and those late in their careers, so it’s a very diverse workforce.”

The Magallanes and Santuario assets are managed on behalf of the client Pemex and Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos (CNH). Petrofac was awarded a Production Enhancement Contract (PEC) in 2011 for the two assets, becoming the first foreign company to operate state oil fields in Mexico for more than 70 years. Santuario is now a Production Sharing Contract, also a first for Mexico’s oil industry. Pictured is the Petrofac team at the Santuario asset, situated a 1 hour 40 min drive from Villahermosa. The team is more than 90% Mexican but with some staff from the USA, UK, Venezuela, Colombia and France, it’s truly multi-cultural.

The Mayan ruin in Comalcalco, near Villahermosa, is one of the region’s most significant archaeological sites. The site is unique as it’s the only major Mayan city to be built with clay bricks, which were then adorned with figurative carvings. Recently deciphered hieroglyphics revealed that the city’s original name was ‘joy chan’ or ‘hoi chan’ meaning cloudy sky.

Mariana Hermosa started out at Petrofac as a receptionist, before joining the HSE team. “My first role in the team was Technical Assistant and now I am a Performance and KPI Analyst,” she explains. “This involves monitoring the performance of the HSE department, carrying out basic training and updating our systems. Last year, we carried out a nine-month training programme to encourage behavioural change around safety which I was very proud of. I’m also lucky to have had the opportunity to meet and interact with almost all of the personnel in Petrofac throughout the training.”

Ricardo López joined Petrofac five years ago as part of our graduate programme after studying geosciences. “At the end of the programme I was assigned as a geologist. Right now, we’re focusing on the development plan for the Santuario field and preparing for a new drilling campaign for next year,” he says. “I believe geology is at the heart of the industry – understanding it is key for everything and gives you an insight into other disciplines. It blows my mind that something that happened millions and millions of years ago can correlate to data in the present and even predict the future.”

Given its name, you might assume that Tabasco sauce is a local product, but it’s actually produced by the McIlhenny Company on Avery Island in Louisiana. Tabasco State is instead famed for its cacao, which the Comalcalco people say, “is a gift from the gods to Tabasco, and from Tabasco to the world”.

One of the most important ecoregions in the world can be found near Villahermosa in north-western Tabasco. A mix of wetlands and forests, the area is home to around 480 plant species, 250 different types of birds and countless mammals, including the West Indian manatee, Morelet’s crocodile (both of which are endangered), jaguars and howler monkeys.