Page 7 - LatAmOil Week 37 2022

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

He also told El Financiero that the Budget Com-
mittee might not base the 2023 budget on the
expectation that oil prices would average $61.10
per barrel. This figure was put forward in April
2022 and may be set to a higher level, he said,
without elaborating.
Crude oil is currently selling at about $90
per barrel for Brent crude and $85 per barrel for
WTI. Brent prices have fallen by slightly more
than 26% in the last three months, while WTI
has gone down by about 35% over the same
period.
While Mexican President Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador has discussed the 2023 budget,
including the plans to extend the extra fund-
ing for Pemex, with Finance Secretary Rogelio
Ramirez de la O, he has not yet seen the final
document outlining next year’s budget.
The presidential administration has indi-
cated that it expects to end the current year with
a small primary deficit and a balanced primary
budget. This is in line with last year’s results, as
Mexico ended 2021 with a deficit of 0.3% of
GDP. Mexico City hopes to attract more investment to Pemex next year (File Photo)
According to Gonzalez, the 2023 budget is
not likely to follow this pattern, as it does not changes in Mexico City’s spending patterns
follow the forecast of a primary surplus of 0.4% next year but also stated that the 2023 budget
of GDP projected in April’s preliminary version. reflected Lopez Obrador’s support for certain
He stressed that there would be no significant social programmes. ™

Pemex confirms part of report on methane

emissions at Zaap oilfield last December

MEXICO’S national oil company (NOC) Pemex
has partially confirmed a report on methane
leaks at Ku-Maloob-Zaap, a cluster of oilfields
in the southern Gulf of Mexico off the coast of
Campeche State, but says the total amount of
gas released was smaller than researchers have
estimated.
Pemex issued an acknowledgment of the
leaks on September 8, saying that a methane leak
did occur at the Zaap-C platform in December
2021, as stated in an article published in Envi-
ronmental Science & Technology Letters by
a research team at the Polytechnic University
of Valencia in June 2022. However, the NOC Satellite images showed a methane leak from the Zaap-C platform (Images: ESA)
disputed the team’s conclusions, which were
based on satellite data from the European Space flare off methane emissions.
Agency (ESA), on several counts. For another, Pemex argued that the total vol-
For one thing, Pemex dismissed the claim ume of methane released during those several
that methane had leaked from the field on multi- hours amounted to only 2,224 tonnes and said
ple occasions between December 8 and Decem- this figure had come from Solal-Genermasa, a
ber 27. Instead, it said that the methane leak had Mexican consultancy that had studied the mat-
only lasted several hours on a single day, on an ter under a contract with the government. The
occasion when rainy and windy weather had research team had put the figure at more than
extinguished a flame that had been intended to 40,000 tonnes.

Week 37 14•September•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P7