Petroleos Mexicanos offshore jack-up rigs drill in the Ku-Maloob-Zaap field in the Gulf of Mexico 65 miles northeast of Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico, on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010. Ku-Maloob-Zaap, Mexico’s largest oil project, will keep producing about 850,000 barrels a day “for the next two or three years,” the company said in May. Pemex, as the state-owned company is known, is Latin America’s largest oil producer. The offshore oil industry has gone into a “cyclical downturn” as a result of the fall in crude prices, one of the world’s largest drilling contractors has warned. Switzerland-based Transocean said on Monday the industry faced “challenging” conditions that were likely to create an oversupply of offshore drilling rigs. The group also warned that it might be forced by deteriorating business conditions to make writedowns beyond the $2.79bn write-off of goodwill and other asset value it announced on Friday. […]