Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 04 2022

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

Nahle denies reports of delays and

cost overruns at Dos Bocas refinery

MEXICAN Energy Minister Rocio Nahle Felipe Perez, a Latin America market ana-
has responded indignantly to reports that the lyst for IHS Markit, took an even bleaker view,
national oil company (NOC) Pemex is running saying that the new refinery might not come on
over budget and behind schedule on the con- stream before President Andres Manuel Lopez
struction of the Dos Bocas refinery in Tabasco Obrador, the biggest champion of the project,
State. finished his term in 2024. “Unfortunately, there’s
On January 22, Nahle said in a post on her a big discrepancy between the government’s
official Twitter account that the refinery project expectations and reality,” he commented.
was not experiencing any setbacks. “Dos Bocas Bloomberg’s sources are not the only scep-
is being built in record time. Opinions around tics, as Pemex itself has expressed some reserva-
the world are very positive,” she wrote. tions. In its most recent annual report, published
She also asserted that those who had in early 2021, the NOC said that the price tag
described the project as behind schedule and for the 340,000 barrel per day (bpd) plant might
over budget were not properly informed about be as high as $12.4bn. It also indicated that the
the state of work on the oil-processing plant. refinery would not be able to start commercial
“Today once again, there are speculative, alarm- operations in mid-2022. Instead, it said, in the
ist and tendentious reports in some national best-case scenario, the facility may be able to
media,” she said, adding that the allegations were launch trial runs and test production by that
coming from “characters who do not even know date but will not be able to do more.
about the project.” Under these circumstances, Pemex com-
The minister took to Twitter after Bloomberg mented, the business case for the Dos Bocas
published an article saying that sources familiar refinery may have to be revamped. “[It] will be
with the situation were doubtful that the plant necessary to reformulate the project, in particu-
would be able to begin operating on schedule lar the internal rate of return and the net present
this year. The news agency’s sources said that value,” the NOC’s 2021 annual report stated. ™
the cost of building the plant appeared to have
climbed to around $12.5bn, or about 40% above
the previously cited figure of around $8.9bn.
(Even the latter figure is higher than the original
estimate of $8bn, but Pemex later revised the fig-
ure upward by $900mn.)
Nahle and other high-ranking Mexican gov-
ernment officials have remained adamant that
the Dos Bocas refinery will start commercial
operations in the middle of this year, as previ-
ously planned – and that the project will not
exceed its $8.9bn budget. However, Bloomb-
erg’s sources indicated that delays were probably
unavoidable, meaning that the Dos Bocas plant
might not be able to launch commercial gasoline
production until 2023 or 2024. The refinery will have a capacity of 340,000 bpd (Photo: LopezObrador.org.mx)

Shell confirms sale of Deer Park stake

SHELL Oil Co., a subsidiary of Royal Dutch partners in Deer Park Refining Ltd Partnership,
Shell (UK/Netherlands), confirmed last week the joint venture that owns the oil-processing
that it had transferred its stake in the Deer Park plant. In a statement dated January 20, Shell
refinery in Texas to PMI Norteamerica, a sub- said it had finalised the sale of its 50.01% equity
sidiary of Mexico’s national oil company (NOC) stake in the joint venture to the Pemex subsid-
Pemex. iary, thereby raising the latter’s holdings from
Shell and PMI Norteamerica have been 49.99% to 100%.

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 04 27•January•2022