Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and the French oil giant Total SA opted out of Mexico’s historic oil auction because the fields are too small. None of the 14 shallow-water prospects in the Gulf of Mexico holds more than 384 million barrels of crude, according to Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission. That’s far short of the billion-barrel finds prized by major international oil producers, said Fadel Gheit, a New York-based senior analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. “Shallow water is the minor leagues and these companies want to play in the major leagues,” Gheit said on Wednesday. “Deepwater is where the major leagues are. The shallow waters have already been picked dry.” The U.S. and European explorers that abstained from the first round of bidding Wednesday also probably balked at some of the financial and contractual terms insisted upon by the Mexican government, Gheit said. Any terms that would have crimped […]