Mexico's new Pemex refinery processes 65,000 bpd of crude in July but no gasoline
Mexican state oil firm Pemex's newest refinery processed some 65,046 bpd of crude oil in July, its first month of operations after multiple delays, and just over 30,000 bpd of diesel and coke.
The Olmeca refinery's production included 21,511 bpd of diesel and 8,775 bpd of coke, Pemex said in a recent report, but no gasoline.
With a maximum processing capacity of 340,000 bpd, the refinery in the Gulf port of Dos Bocas in Tabasco state is Pemex's seventh Mexican refinery. The new capacity helped the producer process some 1.01 MMbpd this month.
This is 145,589 bpd more than Pemex produced in June and the second month this year its output has surpassed 1 MMbpd.
Olmeca was inaugurated in 2022 and its startup has been delayed multiple times since, while its $16.6-B price tag has more than doubled the initial government announcement.
Pemex is the world's most indebted oil firm.
Mexico's government hopes the refinery will help the country eventually achieve self-sufficiency in gasoline and diesel, allowing it to stop importing these products.
However, Pemex has said it is experiencing production declines in key fields and has made fewer significant discoveries.
Pemex Chief Executive Octavio Romero said earlier this month that Olmeca should be producing at its full capacity as of Aug. 21, putting out 175,000 bpd of gasoline and 130,000 bpd of diesel—a difficult figure to reach according to experts.
Olmeca has repeatedly missed production targets.
Pemex's July output consisted chiefly of heavily-polluting fuel oil at 333,172 bpd, followed by gasoline at 287,878 bpd and diesel with 205,326 bpd. This brought monthly output to 1.07 MMbpd per month, from 907,267 bpd in July last year.
Crude oil output slipped to 1.497 MMbpd, bringing crude plus condensate output to 1.77 MMbpd, the lowest level this year and down from 1.86 MMbpd the same month last year.
Despite rising slightly from June, July's crude exports also dipped 26% year-on-year to 779,000 bpd.
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