Page 7 - LatAmOil Week 18 2021

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

Pemex points to problems with schedule,

budget for Dos Bocas refinery project

MEXICO’S national oil company (NOC) Pemex to its board of directors. As of press time, none
has said it does not expect work on the 340,000 of the board’s members had responded to the
barrel per day (bpd) Dos Bocas refinery to be assessment of the refinery project.
completed on time or within budget. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez
Pemex had said originally that the cost of Obrador has been the biggest champion of the
building the plant and bringing it online in mid- Dos Bocas plant, which is being built in his
2022 was likely to reach $8bn, and it later revised home state of Tabasco. He has argued that the
the figure upward to $8.9bn. In its latest annual project will help promote economic growth in
report, however, the company said that the price Mexico by creating jobs, stimulating demand for
tag might be as high as $12.4bn. domestic crude oil production and reducing the
It also indicated that the refinery would not need to import petroleum products.
be able to start regular commercial operations Moreover, he has staked his reputation on
in mid-2022. In the best-case scenario, it said, the scheme, saying repeatedly that if the refinery
the facility may be able to launch trial runs and was not finished by the target date of July 1, 2022,
test production by that date but will not be able “I will change my name.” The president has also
to do more. insisted that the final bill for the plant will be no
Under the circumstances, Pemex said, the higher than $8bn. ™
business case for the Dos Bocas refinery may
have to be revamped. “[It] will be necessary to
reformulate the project, in particular the inter-
nal rate of return and the net present value,” the
company said in its 2020 annual report.
It also reported that physical and financial
work on the refinery project had been 19.5%
complete as of December 31, 2020.
This figure is at odds with previous estimates,
including Energy Minister Rocio Nahle’s state-
ment last October that Pemex’s refining division,
Pemex Transformación Industrial, had already
finished the first stage of the oil-processing plant
and brought the project’s level of completion to
24%.
The NOC has already delivered the report The Dos Bocas refinery is being built in Tabasco state (Photo: LopezObrador.org.mx)

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
BHP achieves first oil at Ruby field

AUSTRALIA’S BHP has begun extracting crude completion of the development drilling pro-
oil from Ruby, a section of Block 3(a) within the gramme for the field in the third quarter of
Greater Angostura field offshore Trinidad and 2021, it added. BHP has already drilled six wells
Tobago. at Ruby under this programme, including five
According to a company statement, the field production wells and one gas-injection well. It
reached the milestone of first oil ahead of sched- is using the production wells to extract oil and
ule last week. gas from the Ruby and Delaware reservoirs, and
BHP did not reveal initial production rates, it has tied all six wells back into its existing pro-
but it did note that Ruby would eventually yield duction facilities.
16,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and 80mn The Australian company intends to drill
cubic feet (2.27mn cubic metres) per day of nat- additional wells at the field and will bring them
ural gas. on stream in the second and third quarters of
Output will reach this level upon the 2021, the statement added.

Week 18 06•May•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P7