Lucia Kassai, Bloomberg News

HOUSTON
EnergiesNet.com 10 31 2024

Production at Petroleos Mexicanos’s new and largest refinery came to a sudden halt in September, threatening the country’s pledge to cut imports of gasoline and diesel. 

The Olmeca refinery processed no crude oil in September, according to company data compiled by Bloomberg. The outage weighed down on Mexico’s fuelmaking capacity. It’s seven refineries on average operated below half of installed capacity when utilization reached 43.9%, the lowest in 11 months. In comparison, fuelmakers in the US are running near 90%. 

Olmeca, also known as Dos Bocas, has faced several setbacks since it was inaugurated two years ago. It only started making fuels in July and operated for another month before coming to a screeching halt. The company previously said the 340,000-barrel-a-day refinery would be running at full tilt by August. 

On an earnings call Tuesday the company didn’t mention any issues with the refinery only to say the second crude train should commence operations in the short term. 

Mexico’s imports of diesel and gasoline have fallen as fuelmaking cranked up, with refineries operating at the highest rates since 2016 earlier this year. But the country is still far from self-sufficiency. Last month Mexico imported 633,000 barrels a day of fuels, mostly from the US, according to Pemex data.

EnergiesNet.com 10 30 2024