Mexican state-controlled energy company Pemex plans to invest $3.44 billion to move forward with production development of a heavy oil field in the Bay of Campeche.

The shallow-water Pit field is one of the projects included in Pemex’s priority list for the next few years, and the decision to proceed follows the filing last week of the development plan for another priority field – Zama.

In its first meeting in more than three months, Mexico’s hydrocarbons regulator CNH gave Pemex the green light to extract oil and natural gas from Pit, which lies a few kilometres south of the giant Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex.