The case of the Madero refinery is peculiar: the complex, built in 1914, was detained at the beginning of the Moreno administration. The last administration halted its production for at least six months due to a delay in a maintenance process. But the complex resumed work in January 2019, in the first month of the Moreno administration.
Already within the goal of presidential energy self-sufficiency, Madero has undergone modernization work, like the rest of the complexes. At the beginning, the announcements indicated that the work in this, and the rest of the five refineries, would be completed during 2020 in order to increase fuel production. But last May the refinery posted its lowest production since July 2021, with 23,000 barrels of fuel per day –between gasoline and diesel– and became the complex that processes the least crude in the national refining system.
The refinery had a good run during 2022 and the beginning of this year, but still with figures below the rest of the company’s refineries.
The complex processed during that good run, according to its records, over 90,000 barrels per day –although much of it ended up being fuel oil–, but this figure has fallen dramatically in recent months. Madero processed the smallest amount of crude oil in May since the same month of 2021, with just 59,700 barrels per day, at 31% of its capacity.
The state company’s administration has decided to reduce the amount of processing in the refinery – like another of the complexes – due to the large amount of fuel oil stored in inventories, according to sources within the state company.
Pemex records show that within the national refining system, Madero is the complex that is least viable in its operation. In proportion to the oil that is processed, this refinery is the one that obtains the most fuel oil, a by-product of the refining process that is increasingly difficult to place on the market.
Madero produces more fuel oil than gasoline: last May – to take the most recent data – it produced around 13,000 barrels of gasoline and 23,000 barrels of fuel oil. The company’s figures show a similar behavior in recent months. Pemex decided to increase the processing of Madero –above 100,000 barrels per day– despite the fact that the amount of gasoline and diesel produced did not compensate for the crude that was used there.
The refinery has low levels of performance despite being reconfigured to process Maya or heavy crude – the one that Pemex produces the most. The complex is the only one in the state park that only operates with this type of oil.
It is also the state-owned refinery that has registered the most incidents –such as fires– in recent months.
The way Madero has operated has not changed in recent months. And analysts doubt that an increase in refinery processing could be sustainable in the long term. “(Make it sustainable) implies that all products are quickly displaced and that they have the same demand (proportionately). But that does not happen. You would need to convert all the bottom of the barrel to products with demand, such as gasoline and diesel-. But no in 6 months it is not possible to raise that level of process and also improve performance”, explains Eduardo Prud’homme, an industry consultant.
but at least 8,000 million pesos have been invested in the refinery and the promise to take its operation to levels that until now have not been possible continues.