Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTTsvetana ParaskovaSun, August 23, 2026 at 11:00 PM GMT+2 4 min readMexico's state oil firm Pemex and Brazil's national oil company Petrobras are joining efforts and expertise to drill prospects in Mexican waters in the Gulf of Mexico, hoping to unlock huge oil resources from source rock formations that are miles deeper and eight times older than the currently producing formations in the U.S. Gulf.Exploration in the Jurassic formations deep under the Mexican Gulf seabed in the Campeche Bay carries high risks, but the reward in case of a discovery could be enormous, geologists and analysts tell Bloomberg.Back in 2018, Pemex drilled more than 7,800 meters (25,600 feet) below the sea floor and penetrated the Campeche salt layer in an exploratory well that was declared unproductive. The Mexican oil giant hasn't ventured new exploratory wells in the area since then, but industry experts believe that Pemex may have found something of great geological and/or hydrocarbon-bearing potential, which has prompted it to pursue exploration further.Pemex hasn't shared publicly any results of its 2018 drilling campaign offshore Campeche, but analysts say there is a reason why the Mexican oil giant hasn't abandoned efforts to find huge resources and turn around years of declining domestic oil production from legacy wells.