“We have paid it, it is not easy. Even though the price (of crude oil) has been very good, in previous months there came a point” where it was financially difficult, he explained when asked about the company’s debt. The director of Finance of the oil company Carlos Cortéz specified that the amortizations for the first quarter add up to around 4,000 million dollars.
The state oil company has debt repayments for 7.5 billion dollars in 2023 and 8.9 billion dollars in 2024, according to Moody’s.
Pemex, with a financial debt of 105,000 million dollars as of the third quarter of the year, has received other government support, such as capital injections, as well as reductions in the Shared Utility Right (DUC) rate, the most significant tax it pays, currently at 40%.
Cortéz considered a new reduction in the DUC “complicated”, since it has reached “a ceiling” with the rate of 40%.
In July, Moody’s downgraded Pemex’s ratings, citing its high debt maturities and the need for external financing given continued losses in the refining business.
The oil company reported a net loss of 52,000 million pesos in the third quarter due to an increase in the cost of sales and foreign exchange losses due to the depreciation of the peso against the dollar, although its revenues rose 56.5% year-on-year, due to higher sales volumes .
Romero, one of the people closest to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, reiterated his confidence that Pemex will close 2022 with profits and an oil production of 1.9 million barrels per day. and that in 2023 the company will reach the goal of 2.0.
“When I tell you that we are going to reach (…) a higher production figure next year (2023) it is because we are in full development of Quesqui and Ixachi, of Tupilco,” said the official.
He added that several wells are planned to be drilled in an accelerated manner in the remainder of the year in those areas, “which gives us the assurance that there will be an increase in production next year.”
Deer Park
Pemex seeks to increase its crude production but no longer with its sights set mainly on the export market, as it did for many years, but rather to increase its fuel production and comply with López Obrador’s mandate to achieve self-sufficiency in gasoline.
For this purpose, Pemex continues with the construction of a new refinery in Dos Bocas, Tabasco, and has acquired its partner, the Anglo-Dutch Shell, 50% of a plant in Deer Park, Texas.
Pemex’s marketing director, Alberto Velázquez, said that currently 25% of the refinery’s total gasoline and diesel production is sent from Deer Park to Mexico, but that these percentages are growing “month by month.”
The official estimated that Pemex could have 100% of Deer Park’s fuel production available in the first half of 2024 to send to Mexico, if so decided.
According to data presented by Pemex officials at the meeting, Deer Park processes 284,000 barrels per day of crude oil and produces 104,000 barrels per day of gasoline crude.
“All the adjustments are being made. The idea is that by the first half of 2024 practically all of Deer Park’s production will be available, either through the Brownsville-Reynosa pipeline or by ship,” Velázquez said.
“It will depend a lot on logistics, which is already comprehensive, because we also have, it is a reality, the increase in national production, and it is basically a question of whether it is more expensive for us to bring the product from Deer Park due to logistics,” he stressed.
In any case, he estimated, it could be taken to the border area between Mexico and the United States.