“A hundred thousand barrels (per day) more or less is what we’re going to import to process and incorporate into our refineries, mostly at Salina Cruz,” Pemex CEO Carlos Trevino said in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the Mexican Petroleum Congress in Acapulco.
Salina Cruz, like Pemex’s other five refineries, has recently been producing far below capacity due to accidents and operational problems, as well as Pemex’s focus on maximizing the value of its oil even if that means refining less domestically.
“We’re going to mix it with Mexican crude, with some of our mix to be able to process at the levels we want to get back to in refining. We should be around 800,000 barrels (per day of refining) by the end of the year,” he added.
Mexico’s refining network can process up to 1.6 million bpd of crude. It has been working this year at around 40 percent.
Trevino said he expects oil auctions scheduled for February, which include the selection of key partners for Pemex, will take place as planned.
“I think there is total certainty” that Mexico’s oil regulator, the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH), will carry out the auctions.
Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said that oil auctions are suspended until contracts already awarded over the past few years have been reviewed.
Pemex, whose oil production and refining volumes have continued declining this year amid the depletion of some of its main oilfields, will not meet its crude output target of 1.95 million barrels per day in 2018.
“We’re not going to meet the goal,” Trevino said.
He expects another year of production decline in 2019, even though Pemex had originally planned to stabilize output by then.
Writing by Anthony Esposito; editing by Jonathan Oatis
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