Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 34 2021

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

US Gulf Coast sees oil supply

disruptions from Mexican outage

THE US Gulf Coast has been facing disruptions Canadian Select (WCS) prices were also bol-
to its crude supplies as a result of an outage in stered by news of the outage in Mexico.
Mexico this week. A fire on an offshore oil plat- On August 23, Pemex’s CEO Octavio
form in the Gulf of Mexico led state-owned Romero Oropeza said Mexico’s monthly pro-
Pemex to shut 125 wells and cut its production duction and exports could fall.
by around 25%, or 421,000 barrels per day (bpd), He also noted that the overall impact of the
from August 22. accident had not yet been quantified yet and
The platform is part of Pemex’s main stated that it might take days for production to
Ku-Maloob-Zaap shallow-water production resume.
complex, which represented more than 40% of In a follow-up statement on August 25, he
the company’s 1.77mn bpd total crude output said production was in the process of being
in June. restored, with 71,000 bpd of output recovered
The US Gulf Coast is the largest buyer of by the time he spoke, and a further 110,000 bpd
Mexican crude, which accounts for around anticipated to return in the subsequent hours.
38% of the foreign oil processed in the region. Romero said Pemex expected to fully resume all
According to Bloomberg, refiners including production that had been affected by August 30.
Valero Energy, Phillips 66 and Chevron are Several US refiners had been scheduled to
among the largest US buyers of Mexican oil so receive cargoes of Mexican crude in the days
far this year. Sour crude prices there began to following the fire, including Chevron, Phillips
rise following the incident. 66 and Valero, according to sources cited by
Reutersquoed traders familiar with the Reuters. Valero was aiming to load a cargo on
matter as saying that refiners in the region had August 24, sourcing the barrels from onshore
started seeking replacement barrels in anticipa- Pemex storage tanks at the Pajaritos terminal,
tion of supply being disrupted. Indeed, Western the sources said. ™

Mexico takes steps to prevent Vitol and

Trafigura from doing business with Pemex

MEXICAN Energy Minister Rocio Nahle
announced last week that her country’s govern-
ment had barred two major international com-
modity traders, Vitol and Trafigura, from doing
business with the national oil company (NOC)
Pemex.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Nahle stated
that the new restrictions would remain in place
until Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador’s term ends in 2024. Mexican author-
ities are taking this step because both Vitol and
Trafigura were under suspicion of corruption,
and they are also examining other commodity Vitol and Trafigura have fallen under suspicion (Image: Trafigura)
trading firms to determine whether further bans
were necessary. saying that it had not taken any official measures
“Those who are carrying out corruption affecting Vitol or Trafigura. SENER told Argus
shouldn’t be in Mexico,” Nahle declared. “We are Media earlier this week that there was no for-
working to leave a country with good practices.” mal ban in place, even though Pemex and PMI
The Mexican Secretariat of Energy (SENER) would only conduct business with companies
later walked back some of the minister’s remarks, that were not suspected of corruption.

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 34 26•August•2021