Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 01 2022

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

Pemex signals support for AMLO’s plan

to phase out oil exports by end-2023

MEXICO’S national oil company (NOC) domestic fuel supplies and eliminating depend-
Pemex has signalled that it will back President ence on imported fuels. The feedstock will go
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s plan to halt to Pemex’s six existing plants, which have been
crude oil exports by the end of next year in order operating far below their full design capacity for
to eliminate the country’s reliance on imported many years, as well as its Deer Park refinery in
petroleum products. Texas. It will also eventually go to the Dos Bocas
Speaking to reporters in late December, refinery, a 340,000 bpd facility now under con-
Pemex’s CEO Octavio Romero Oropeza said struction in Lopez Obrador’s home state of
that the NOC intended to reduce oil exports to Tabasco.
435,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2022 and would As of press time, neither Lopez Obrador nor
then halt exports altogether during the course of Romero Oropeza has said how this new export
2023. He did not say how this year’s cuts would reduction plan might affect Mexico’s overall
be accomplished but indicated that Pemex energy policy, which still technically leaves
would not stop deliveries to foreign customers the domestic petroleum product market open
abruptly next year. Instead, he said, the company to private competitors, in line with reforms
will phase out exports. adopted in 2013-2014. The president is at best
Romero Oropeza did not say whether Pemex lukewarm on these reforms, which were enacted
had decided exactly how to distribute the cuts by his predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto, and has
among its portfolio of foreign buyers. Bloomb- said repeatedly that he believes state-owned
erg commented late last month, however, that Pemex should play the leading role in Mexico’s
the Mexican NOC is widely expected to make oil and fuel sector. ™
the biggest adjustments to its shipments to Asia,
which currently absorbs about 25% of the coun-
try’s total crude exports. The most significant of
these will probably affect customers in South
Korea and India, the news agency said, while
US and European buyers are likely to see much
smaller reductions.
Reducing exports is not a trifling matter.
Mexico has been exporting at least 1mn bpd of
crude oil since the early 1980s, and the 2021 fig-
ure was no exception, coming in at a bit more
than 1mn bpd. President Lopez Obrador’s plan
now calls for cutting that figure down by more
than 60% in 2022 and then bringing it all the way
down to zero by the end of the following year.
Pemex has already decided, though, what
to do with the additional barrels of crude oil. It
will deliver these volumes to its refineries with
the intent of maximising fuel output, increasing Asia absorbs about 25% of Pemex’s oil exports (File Photo)

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
NGC’s profits, revenues rise in 9M-2021

NATIONAL Gas Co. of Trinidad and Tobago The state-owned company’s revenues were
Ltd (NGC) has reported a net profit of also up significantly, reaching TTD15.6bn
TTD1.045bn ($153.39mn) for the first nine ($2.29bn) during the January-September inter-
months of 2021, marking a strong recovery from val. This represents a rise of 93% on the figure
its net loss of TTD42mn ($6.17mn) in the same of TTD8.1bn ($1.19bn) registered in the same
period of last year. period of 2021.

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 01 06•January•2022