MEXICO CITY, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Mexico's hydrocarbon

regulator approved on Thursday a request by state energy company

Pemex to expand a natural gas project in the Gulf of Mexico,

which requires extra investments of just over $400 million.

The Lakach field has been hailed as a potential gateway to a

new deepwater Mexican gas frontier.

Pemex had requested to update the field's production

strategy with the recovery and termination of wells, the

management of production, and the commercialization of

hydrocarbons.

Of the $2.218 billion in costs that were approved for the

years of 2024 and 2041 by the regulator CNH, $1.667 billion are

earmarked for investments and $551 million for operational

expenses.

An earlier plan, authorized last year for 2024 to 2035,

listed an estimated $1.815 billion. Its production deadline was

also pushed back from 2025 to 2026.

Recently, Grupo Carso, owned by Mexican

billionaire Carlos Slim, signed an exploration and extraction

services contract with Pemex. It said it would invest $1.2

billion.

Pemex has said that it has spent about $1.400 billion on

Lakach, a project that has been shelved twice before. Pemex and

New Fortress Energy parted at the end of 2023 after they could

not agree on terms.

In addition, the project now contemplates the construction

of gas pipelines up to the ground - instead of using boats to

collect the gas and transport it, as previously planned.