Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 43 2021

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

Tula refinery reportedly back online

MEXICO’S second largest oil refinery has problems last month, when local schoolteachers
reportedly resumed regular commercial oper- began protesting over the government’s failure
ations after being shut down for several weeks to pay their salaries and to distribute pension
because of protests that blocked railway and payments to retirees on time. These demon-
road transport routes. strations were part of a wave of similar actions
A source inside Pemex, Mexico’s national oil staged by Mexican teachers around the country,
company (NOC), told Reuters on October 22 and they forced a shutdown of the oil-processing
that the 315,000 barrel per day (bpd) Tula plant, plant for more than three weeks.
located in Hidalgo State, was operational once Pemex did initially try to wait out the trouble
again. “Tula began operating again on Wednes- by loading its petroleum products into storage
day [October 20],” said the source, who spoke on facilities. However, the blockages continued
condition of anonymity. for a long enough time that storage tanks were
Pemex did not immediately confirm the filled, leaving the Tula plant with no place to put
report from Reuters. However, Mexican Presi- its production.
dent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stated dur- Even before the shutdown, though, the
ing his daily press briefing on October 22 that refinery was not performing optimally. Accord-
the refinery was in production. ing to official Pemex data, the facility has been
In response to questions from reporters operating at less than half of its design capac-
about whether the Tula plant was still offline, ity this year. In the first eight months of 2021,
Lopez Obrador gave an equivocal answer that it processed 153,400 bpd on average or 48.7%
addressed the impact of the road and rail block- of capacity, and in August alone it processed
ades rather than the state of operations at the 146,000 bpd on average or 46.3% of capacity. ™
facility. Specifically, he said: “We do not have
reports of problems.”
The president also drew attention to the pro-
tests near the refinery in Hidalgo State, pointing
out that rail blockages might have had an effect
on shipments of the plant’s heavy residual fuel
oil production. “This prevents fuel oil produced
in Tula from getting to the port of Lazaro Carde-
nas via train,” he said, adding that trucks were
being used to deliver the necessary volumes to
the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission
(CFE) for use at thermal power plants (TPPs).
He went on to say that he expected the pro-
tests to die down soon, as his government had
taken steps to pay overdue salaries to teachers.
The Tula refinery began experiencing Tula refinery (Photo: Presidencia de la República Mexicana)

MPL teams up with ConocoPhillips, Bechtel

to reduce LNG terminal project’s emissions

US-BASED Mexico Pacific Ltd (MPL) is set the project, which envisions the construction
to collaborate with two other US companies, of a gas liquefaction plant capable of producing
ConocoPhillips and Bechtel, for the purpose and exporting 14.1mn tonnes per year (tpy) of
of designing its planned LNG import terminal LNG.
in Mexico’s Sonora State in a way that serves to In a statement, it said the partners were aim-
reduce carbon dioxide emissions. ing to “advance the global energy transition and
MPL unveiled plans for collaboration with to assist in lowering greenhouse gas emissions
ConocoPhillips and Bechtel earlier this week. by pursuing innovative, lower-carbon LNG
It also noted that the latter firm would be design solutions” for future phases of the MPL
working with the French company Techint on LNG facility.

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 43 28•October•2021