pemex

Mexico City. Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) is preparing to begin operations at the Olmeca refinery, located in the municipality of Paraíso, in Tabasco, which, according to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will initially produce a minimum of 250 thousand barrels of gasoline per day.

According to a post by the state-owned company on the social network X, Octavio Romero Oropeza visited the oil company’s new facilities on Friday to “review preparations for the start of production.”

Pemex executives said at a conference call with investors and analysts in late July that the refinery’s production for the seventh month would be included in the monthly statistics, which will be released at the end of August.

Reinaldo Wences, deputy director of Evaluation and Regulatory Compliance at Pemex Industrial Transformation, said on that occasion that in July the Olmeca refinery was already processing 100 thousand barrels of crude oil per day in intermediate operations.

Photo X @RefineriaDosBoc

The objective of the new facilities is to produce 340 thousand barrels of fuel per day in order to reduce energy dependence, which in turn will help achieve energy sovereignty by stopping the import of crude oil products, such as gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, among others, from the United States.

Pemex estimates show that by the end of the year the state-owned company is expected to refine around 1.16 million barrels of crude oil per day, counting only the six facilities of the National Refining System (SNR) —which is currently being rehabilitated— and the Olmeca refinery.

In recent days, President López Obrador said that the Olmeca refinery would begin operating this Saturday, after it was inaugurated in July 2023, although the civil works were also inaugurated in the summer of 2022. “It will produce around 250,000, 260,000 barrels of gasoline per day,” he said.

Photo X @RefineriaDosBoc

On July 19, Romero Oropeza said at the morning press conference of the head of the Executive that the Olmeca refinery will reach its maximum processing capacity of 340 thousand barrels per day starting in September, the last month of the current federal administration.

The start of operations of the new facilities was planned for July 2022, but this did not happen, while a year later the tests began, which lasted for more than a year.

The start-up has been postponed on several occasions, according to specialists, this is common due to the complexity involved in processing crude oil.

In addition, the project has been criticized for its cost. Although an expenditure of 8.8 billion dollars was contemplated, data provided to La Jornada in February indicated that the work had a cost of almost 16 billion dollars. The figure was confirmed in May, when Pemex sent its 2023 annual report to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Mexico City. Almost two months before the end of its six-year term, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) reports “financial and productive solidity” after reducing its net debt by 25 percent, which represents a payment of 33 billion dollars less, the company said.

At the beginning of the current administration, the oil company had a debt of 132.3 billion dollars and at the end of the first half of 2024 it rose to 99.4 billion dollars, it indicated in a report to the deputies of the Energy Commission.

The information highlights that in 2018, “a company was found to be heavily indebted due to the abuse of six or seven consecutive six-year terms that milked it. One of the first measures was to reduce the Right to Shared Utilities (DUC), the tax with the greatest impact, which went from 65 percent to 30 percent.”

The company’s director, Octavio Romero Oropeza, has pointed out that thanks to the reduction of Pemex’s obligations, it is no longer necessary to contract new debt to pay taxes or undertake investments.

During this six-year period, Pemex explained, it has received transfers for 1.14 trillion pesos, and with the resources granted, it has paid 624 billion pesos in amortizations, and the rest of the funds, that is, 390 billion pesos, were allocated for the construction of infrastructure such as the Olmeca Refinery, to which 320 billion pesos were allocated; or the acquisition of the Deer Park Refinery at a cost of 23 billion pesos.

17 billion pesos were also invested to rehabilitate the National Refining System (SNR), while an additional four billion pesos were invested in the recovery of the fertilizer plants; the hydrogen plant at the Madero Refinery was acquired with a billion pesos, and 25 billion pesos were paid for other projects.

Mexico City. Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) expects that by the end of 2024, the six refineries of the National Refining System (SNR) will process an average of one million barrels, plus 160,000 from the Olmeca refinery, built in Dos Bocas, Tabasco.

“This year, the capacity of the new refinery in Dos Bocas, which already processes crude oil and intermediate processes, will be integrated, thus beginning its contribution to the national fuel supply,” said Pemex director Octavio Romero Oropeza, in information delivered to the Energy Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, regarding the conversation the official held on Friday with investors.

“If we add the activity of Deer Park, the average would climb to more than 1.4 million barrels. The scene is very different (at the beginning of the six-year term) because in September, at the end of this administration, crude oil processing will be at 1.7 million barrels per day, which is 233 percent higher than that observed in December 2018,” he said.

Furthermore, for Pemex, as the process is accounted for and increased to its full capacity at the Olmeca refinery and the efficiencies of the coking plants under construction in Tula and Salina Cruz are captured, “we will converge towards national self-sufficiency in terms of fuels.”

In sum, according to the oil company’s quarterly report, in the second quarter of 2024 alone, crude oil processing in the SNR averaged a total of 886 thousand barrels per day, which represents an increase of 60,500 barrels or 7.3% more compared to the same period in 2023.

The increase is a result of the improvement in the performance of the Salina Cruz, Salamanca and Madero refineries, which registered the following processing levels with a total of 227 thousand barrels per day, 143 thousand and 127 thousand, respectively, the company indicated.

Mexico Metropolis. Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) “is at its finest,” mentioned President Andrés Manuel López Obrador; and he maintained that in his six-year time period the “feat” of rescuing the state-owned firm was achieved.

On the morning press convention on Friday, a report was introduced on the rescue of this productive firm of the Mexican State, by its head, Octavio Romero Oropeza, who detailed, for instance, that firstly of the administration, 304 thousand barrels of gasoline had been produced within the nation and by September of this 12 months —when the Tabasco native’s time period ends— the determine will attain 1 million 268 thousand.

The opposition “are propagandists, always speaking about Pemex being at its worst, and the identical with the Federal Electrical energy Fee, that’s completely false, it isn’t true. Pemex has been rescued as a public firm, as an organization of all Mexicans, a feat that was achieved, the identical with the CFE. Individuals at all times say that Pemex is in a really unhealthy state, our adversaries are consultants in misinformation, they dedicate themselves to that, when in actuality Pemex is at its finest, it may be mentioned that Pemex was rescued,” the federal president emphasised.

He recalled that in the course of the neoliberal regimes, the disappearance of Pemex and CFE was sought with the so-called vitality reform, “which was a deception,” since of the 110 contracts for oil exploitation that had been awarded, solely three are in operation, as a result of the enterprise was to promote the concessions of the territory.

Additionally they mentioned that personal firms would produce 3 million barrels a day, and presently they solely extract 40 thousand a day.

Opposite to this, he careworn, with the coverage undertaken by his administration within the discipline of vitality, uncooked supplies and crude oil are now not bought overseas, however quite they’ve targeted on the manufacturing of fuels (gasoline, diesel, jet gasoline).

He careworn that because of this, Mexico now produces 75 % of the gasoline it consumes and solely buys 25 % from overseas.

“Within the time remaining till the tip of this 12 months, we might be nearly at 100%, that means we is not going to be shopping for gasoline, jet gasoline or diesel from overseas. Isn’t {that a} feat?”

For his half, Romero Oropeza indicated that the coverage of this six-year time period was to rehabilitate the six present refineries, the development of the Olmeca Refinery in Dos Bocas, Tabasco was accomplished and Deer Park was bought.

Thus, manufacturing figures, he mentioned, have been on the rise. In December 2018, firstly of the six-year time period, solely 511 thousand barrels had been processed day by day, and for the January-June 2024 semester, a million 202 thousand had been reached; and by September, when the federal government ends, will probably be a million 702 thousand barrels per day.

He added that with the entry into operation within the coming days of Dos Bocas and the coking plant in Tula, Hidalgo, within the first quarter of 2025 – already with the federal government of the digital president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum – manufacturing will attain 1 million 761 thousand barrels per day.

Within the case of Pemex’s debt, he identified, within the two earlier six-year phrases (Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto) it elevated by 91 %, going from 68.9 billion {dollars} in 2006 to 132 billion {dollars} in 2018.

On this six-year interval, the debt fell by 25 %, to 99 billion {dollars}; that’s, 32.9 million {dollars} much less in debt.