Page 12 - LatAmOil Week 36

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But the NOC has said it will prioritise its most
profitable projects in order to improve its posi-
tion. Its chief financial officer Alberto Velazquez
also downplayed the impact of recent events,
saying in May that the fallout from the pan-
demic was “serious but temporary.”
Mexico had been extracting about 1.8mn
bpd of oil prior to the coronavirus outbreak.
But in the first few phase of the pandemic, the
Latin American country did not make any deep
output cuts in response to the chaos unleashed
on global markets. It also declined to join the
OPEC+ group in April, when plans for addi-
tional reductions were approved.
Instead, Mexican President Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador said that the country intended
to increase domestic refining capacity in order
to shore up the domestic oil and gas market and Mexico’s president backs the Dos Bocas refinery (Photo: Expansion.mx)
end Mexico’s dependence on imported refined
products. He stated that Pemex would continue all: the $8bn Dos Bocas refinery, which will be
to build new units while also upgrading existing able to process 340,000 bpd of heavy crude oil.
facilities. Last month, Mexican Energy Minister Rocio
Lopez Obrador had said in April that his Nahle reported that progress was being made
government would not postpone or cancel con- on the refinery, which is under construction in
struction of Pemex’s most expensive project of the southern Mexican state of Tabasco. ™

CURAÇAO
RdK sues PdVSA in US court

REFINERIA di Korsou (RdK), the govern-
ment-run operator of Curaçao’s only oil-pro-
cessing plant, has taken legal action against
Venezuela’s national oil company (NOC)
PdVSA in a US court.
In a plea filed in a New York State court on
August 26, RdK said it was seeking to recover
$51mn worth of overdue service payments from
PdVSA. The document alleges that the Vene-
zuelan NOC failed to submit the payments due
between February 2018 and December 2019,
during a period when it still held a lease for the
La Isla refinery on Curaçao.
As of press time, neither PdVSA nor the Ven-
ezuelan government had responded to the new
lawsuit.
This is not the first time RdK has tried to The La Isla refinery has a capacity of 350,000 bpd (Photo: Curaçao Chronicle)
recover the missed service payments from the
Venezuelan firm. The company has also filed a August, they demanded that Propernyn with-
$162mn claim in an arbitration court and has draw PdVSA’s crude stocks from the terminal on
also sought relief from local courts. In March of the grounds of mitigating risks stemming from
this year, it responded to a Curaçao court ruling its “unacceptable” failure to perform routine
in its favour by seizing inventories and assets maintenance and repair work on storage tanks,
from Propernyn, a Dutch-registered PdVSA docks and other facilities.
affiliate that owns the BOPEC terminal on the RdK has a long-standing relationship with
neighbouring island of Bonaire. Later, though, the Venezuelan NOC. PdVSA began operat-
it reversed course, returning the seized property ing the Curaçao refinery and associated facili-
to Propernyn. ties, including the Bullenbay Oil Terminal and
Since then, local authorities in Bonaire a utilities plant known as CRU, under a rental
have raised a number of complaints about the agreement first signed in 1985 and later renewed
PdVSA subsidiary’s handling of BOPEC. In late multiple times.

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 35 03•September•2020