By Anthony Harrup


MEXICO CITY - Mexican state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos plans to start production at its new Olmeca refinery in southern Mexico at the end of January, chief executive Octavio Romero Oropeza said Thursday.

Speaking at President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's morning press conference, Romero Oropeza said Pemex's six refineries in Mexico processed 794,000 barrels a day of crude oil last year, while its Deer Park refinery in Texas processed 270,000 barrels a day.

With the new refinery in operation, Pemex expects to raise its total crude processing to 1.5 million barrels a day this year, and to increase that to nearly 1.8 million barrels a day by 2026, he added. The new refinery is located in Dos Bocas, in southern Tabasco state.

The Olmeca refinery, one of López Obrador's flagship infrastructure projects, is expected to process 243,000 barrels a day this year and raise that to 320,000 barrels a day in 2025, Romero Oropeza said.

The Pemex official said the company produced close to 1.9 million barrels a day of crude oil and condensates in 2023, of which 30% came from new fields and 70% from mature fields. In 2019, the first year of the current administration, Pemex produced just under 1.7 million barrels a day of crude and condensates.

By refining more of its own oil, Mexico is seeking to reduce its imports of petroleum products, including gasoline and diesel, and lower its petroleum trade deficit.

Pemex imported 396,000 barrels a day of gasoline in the first 11 months of 2023, and 170,000 barrels a day of diesel. Mexico also imports around 6 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas from the U.S., and had a petroleum trade deficit of $9.7 billion in the January-November period.


Write to Anthony Harrup at anthony.harrup@wsj.com


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01-04-24 1655ET