Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 18 2022

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

Report: Olmeca refinery may cost $14bn

THE final price tag for the 340,000 barrel per President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
day (bpd) refinery that Mexico’s national oil “Where is the money going to come from? I
company (NOC) Pemex is building in Tabasco don’t know if the president knows about all these
state may be nearly twice the original figure of extra amounts,” he remarked.
$8bn, according to a report from Reuters. The energy minister had said last month
The news agency reported late last week, cit- that the price tag for the Olmeca refinery would
ing government documents and sources close reach $9.8bn, up by $900mn on the previous
to the project, that officials in Mexico City now estimate of $8.9bn. She attributed the increase
believed that the NOC would have to spend to the expanding scope of the project, noting
around $14bn on the Olmeca refinery, formerly that Pemex had decided to ensure the refinery’s
known as Dos Bocas. This is higher than the ability to operate independently by constructing
internal cost estimate of $12bn that Pemex was a co-generation plant, an aqueduct and a 65-km
reported to have drawn up in 2020, it noted. natural gas pipeline.
Reuters’ sources said the figure had risen Pemex is building the Olmeca refinery with
to $14bn because of “already-committed con- the support of Lopez Obrador. The president is
tracts” that ran until early 2024. They did not keen to ensure that the NOC retains its leading
reveal any further details about the contracts, role within Mexico’s fuel and energy industry,
but they did note that Pemex was also facing and he sees the refinery project as a means of
another problem – namely, a dispute over state ensuring that all Mexican oil production can
funding for the refinery project. be refined locally, thereby guaranteeing that
The government documents viewed by the domestic petroleum product supplies remain
news agency show that Mexico’s government plentiful and cheap. ™
has already spent more than $8.818bn on the
oil-processing plant. However, Energy Rocio
Nahle, who serves as chairperson of Pemex’s
board of directors as well as head of the Secre-
tariat of Energy (SENER), is ready to spend even
more in the hope of launching the refinery this
summer as previously scheduled, despite the
Finance Ministry’s efforts to persuade her oth-
erwise, one source said.
“The minister is committing resources that
have not been authorised by the Pemex board
and that the Finance Ministry wants to avoid
due to legal issues,” he explained.
Reuters’ other source went further, raising
questions about whether Nahle was acting with
the approval of her closest political ally, Mexican Archive photo of Olmeca refinery construction site (Photo: LopezObrador.org.mx)

SENER restores Trafigura’s

five fuel import permits

TRAFIGURA, the Swiss-based commodities reinstatement of Trafigura’s import permits in
trading company, reports that Mexico’s Secretar- order that they can continue to be used,” it said.
iat of Energy (SENER) had restored the petro- According to Argus, the five new petro-
leum product import permits that it cancelled leum product import permits issued to Trafig-
last September. ura will allow the company to import a total of
The trader confirmed this development 286.1bn litres of fuel. This will include 63.6bn
on May 3, telling Argus Media that SENER litres of regular diesel with 15-500 ppm of sul-
had taken this step in response to a Mexican phur, 63.6bn litres of ultra-low-sulphur diesel
court ruling. “We are pleased to confirm that (ULSD) with less than 15 ppm of sulphur and
[today] the Mexican judiciary mandated the 31.8bn litres of jet fuel, it said.

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 18 05•May•2022