Mexico's new oil refinery to cover 20% of fuel needs in weeks, president says
Production at a new refinery owned and operated by Mexico's state-run oil company Pemex will meet a fifth of the country's motor fuel needs within two weeks, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday.
Production from the Olmeca refinery, located at the Gulf Coast port of Dos Bocas, has been delayed multiple times since its symbolic inauguration in 2022. The facility, a signature infrastructure project of Lopez Obrador, has been pitched as crucial to the outgoing president's drive to make Mexico self-sufficient in gasoline and diesel.
The refinery's cost has more than doubled to nearly $17 B.
"Yesterday this refinery produced 10% of all the gasoline we consume daily and I hope that in a week, in 15 days, it will be producing 20% of all the gasoline we consume in the country," Lopez Obrador said in his daily press conference.
Over the weekend, officials said the Olmeca refinery will be processing close to its full capacity of 340,000 bpd from Aug. 21 and will produce 175,000 bpd of gasoline and 130,000 bpd of diesel.
The refinery was processing some 170,000 bpd of crude over the weekend, Mexican officials said on Sunday during an event at the refinery.
Despite being a crude oil producer, Mexico imports most of its motor fuels due to longstanding inefficiencies at its domestic refineries.
Lopez Obrador, who has sought to strengthen the finances of debt-laden Pemex, promised shortly after taking office in late 2018 that the refinery would be constructed in a record time of three years.
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