MEX­I­CO CITY-Mex­i­co's state-owned oil com­pa­ny re­ports it has found pos­si­ble re­serves of as much as 125 mil­lion bar­rels of oil at a deep-wa­ter well in the Gulf of Mex­i­co. Petroleos Mex­i­canos says the Supre­mus 1 well is lo­cat­ed about 24 miles (39 kilo­me­tres) south of US ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters, and is more than 4,000 me­tres deep. The com­pa­ny says the area known as the Per­di­do belt con­tains prospec­tive re­serves that could amount to as much as 13 bil­lion bar­rels of crude equiv­a­lent.

It notes that if proven, that would dou­ble Mex­i­co's cur­rent proven re­serves. Pres­i­dent Fe­lipe Calderon an­nounced the dis­cov­ery yes­ter­day. If brought in­to pro­duc­tion, it could ac­count for about 10 per cent of the com­pa­ny's cur­rent dai­ly out­put, about 2.6 mil­lion bar­rels.