Mexican state-run oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and its Brazilian counterpart, Petrobras, have renewed an agreement on cooperation in deep-water oil exploration and production, Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced on Friday.

The renewal will allow for better worker training and promote research for Mexican technological solutions, Calderon said when inaugurating a marine oil platform drilling into the Ku-Maloob-Zaap deposit, in the southeastern Mexican state of Campeche.

The platform, the largest in Mexico, is located in Campeche Sound, where the bulk of Mexico's offshore fields are based.

Calderon said that the superstructure, which cost nearly 250 million U.S. dollars, is setting new records every day and is competitive in terms of technology, quality and efficiency with cutting-edge platforms across the world.

Taking advantage of marine oil is an urgent challenge for Mexico as the country's largest oil field, Cantarell, which produces more than half the nation's oil, is declining.

Source: Xinhua