BIG things may be about to happen down Mexico way.
It’s the first day of our Mexican oil & gas trade mission and 28 North-east businesses have travelled over 5,000 miles to showcase their expertise and innovation to the industry here.
This is the biggest oil and gas trade delegation to visit Mexico City, and the team at UK Trade and Investment and the Mexico British Chamber of Commerce have put together a packed programme of meetings with key people in the top companies in the region.
So why are firms so keen to be coming now?
Mexican government reforms of the state owned energy company PEMEX have been rolled out over the last 18 months, and the market is opening up to foreign investment.
Years of state ownership also mean that the kind of innovation that have maximised recovery from aging wells is welcome here too.
Future developments into deep water also invite expertise from the North Sea to a region where experience is based in shallower waters.
And whilst the recent first round of licensing bids for exploration blocks was disappointing for PEMEX, it did introduce London-based Premier and Dallas based Talon to the market.
And it’s expected that the world’s oil majors will be active in the next round when deep-water blocks will be on offer.
And that is the hope from our delegation here, opening up the licensing is only the beginning as the domino effect on the supply chain will be the bigger prize for North-east businesses.
It seems certain that the 77-year monopoly enjoyed by PEMEX is now over.
This trade mission will further cement the relationship established during the Mexican presidential visit to Aberdeen in March this year.
Businesses from Mexico attended then too and some followed up recently at OE2015.
And this trip has a unique aspect too.
At a time when collaboration is encouraged in the industry, Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, Subsea UK, the EIC, and NOF have worked together to encourage their members to get involved, sharing the risk and passing on the cost savings to members.
And UKTI and Scotland Development International have done their bit too by supporting SMEs to think about exporting to new markets, some of them for the first time.
This week represents an opportunity to build knowledge and business contacts - new orders may take a little longer.
It demonstrates though that North-east business knows that finding new markets is critical to the future success of their businesses.
The North Sea remains important to them, but so too does the rest of the world.