Energy firms from around the world have gathered in Houston, Texas, each year since 1969 for the Offshore Technology Conference. The event, the industry's largest annual exhibition, offers interested parties a chance to explore new opportunities for offshore oil exploration. With that in mind, representatives and officials from Brazil and Mexico flocked to this year's conference, which took place May 1-4, in hopes of drumming up interest in their energy prospects. The countries, which are among Latin America's top three oil producers, both are looking to attract more international investment to their offshore industries as they try to develop challenging deep-water resources. Mexico completed its first deep-water block auction in December 2016, and Brazil is preparing for its second round of bidding on its offshore pre-salt, a geological formation that accumulated on the continental shelves before the salt layer, around 160 million years ago.