Pemex CEO sees Mexico close to self-sufficiency in fuels

The controversial investments in refining made by Mexico’s national oil company Pemex under the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador have brought the country close to achieving self-sufficiency in fuels, CEO Octavio Romero Oropeza said on Friday.

Pemex’s production of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel will rise from 304,000b/d at the end of 2018, when the López Obrador administration took office, to 1.3Mb/d in the first quarter of 2025, he said.

That will reduce Mexico’s deficit in fuels from 927,000b/d in 2018, mainly imported from the US, to 52,000b/d in September 2024. In the first quarter of 2025, the deficit will fall to just 20,000b/d, according to the CEO. 

In the first half of this year, Mexico imported 498,000b/d of fuels, Romero Oropeza said while speaking alongside López Obrador at the president’s daily news conference.

On taking office, López Obrador committed to using Pemex to make Mexico self-sufficient in fuels.

Analysts say that apart from the Deer Park refinery in Texas that Pemex acquired in 2022, the company’s six aging refineries in Mexico are likely to be unprofitable. Pemex could have achieved higher returns by investing in other areas such as exploration and production, they say.

Romero Oropeza said that in the first half of this year, Pemex's refineries processed 1.2Mb/d of crude, up from 511,000b/d in 2018.

The start of production at the Olmeca refinery will add 340,000b/d of capacity by September, he said.

The much-delayed refinery, which is estimated to have cost around US$18bn, began partial operations in June with average production of just 19,000b/d, according to the CEO’s presentation. Analysts have said it is unlikely to reach full capacity this year.

With the entry into full production of the Tula coking plant in the first quarter of 2025, the total refining capacity of Pemex will reach 1.76Mb/d, more than three times the level in 2018.

A new coking plant at the Salina Cruz refinery will be 67% ready by the end of the quarter, Romero Oropeza said.

“In the first quarter of 2025, with the start of full production of the Tula coker, we will have achieved 98% of self-sufficiency in fuels,” Romero Oropeza said. “When Salina Cruz is ready, we will even have more than national demand. We will have a surplus.”

Meanwhile, Pemex reduced its debt from US$108.6bn at the end of 2023 to US$99.4bn at the end of June 2024, down from a record high of US$136.6bn in 2020. 

Romero Oropeza said this reduction was “basically because of the support that Pemex has received like never before from the president.”