Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) will stop exporting crude in 2023 to allocate everything to domestic consumption, said Octavio Romero Oropeza, general director of the state oil company, on Tuesday.
“Practically 100% of Mexican crude will be refined in our country to guarantee fuel supply,” Romero Oropeza announced at the morning press conference at the National Palace.
The director of Pemex presented a special report on the 10 actions carried out by the oil company to comply with the "energy transformation" of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has promised the "self-sufficiency".
The official showed that when the Administration began, in December 2018, 1.71 million barrels a day were produced, a figure that now stands at 1.75 million and which in 2024 promises to rise to 2 million.
He also exhibited that upon arrival, 506,000 barrels were processed and 1.19 million were exported a day, a proportion that in 2021 has changed to 714,000 processed barrels and 1,019 million exported.
“By 2023 and 2024 practically all of Pemex’s production will be processed, it will be refined,” he said.
The Government Secretary of Energy, Rocío Nahle, highlighted the increase in Pemex’s refining capacity with the rehabilitation of the six existing refineries, the incorporation of the Deer Park plant in Houston, Texas, and the construction of the Dos Bocas refinery in Southeast.
With this, the Government will leave the national refining system operating at 86% of its capacity in 2024.
"When we get to December 1, 2018, we find utilization at 32%. Today we are closing this year with almost 50% utilization of the national refining system and by 2024 we will be leaving 86%, and with this we will be fulfilling self-sufficiency in Mexico, ”Nahle said.
The "rescue" Pemex and fuel self-sufficiency are among the main promises of President López Obrador.
Even so, the oil company lost $ 4.936 million in the first nine months of 2021 after losing $ 21.417 million in 2020 in the "worst crisis in its history", as recognized by the company itself.
Only this 2021, the Mexican government supported Pemex with a total of 19,000 million dollars, between capital injections, tax reduction and debt payments, according to a report by Moody’s.
“With these reductions in taxes we will be able to comply with the offer of the president in the sense that prices do not rise above in real terms in the country,” justified this Tuesday Romero Oropeza.
For the remaining three years of this government, Pemex foresees a total budget of more than 1.11 trillion pesos (more than 53.5 billion dollars).
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