The López Obrador Government enters the final stretch of its mandate with the slogan of continuing to support Petróleos Mexicanos in the refinancing of its debt and advancing the objective of productive self-sufficiency in gasoline. The goals are not minor if the starting point is analyzed: Pemex continues to be the most indebted oil company in the world, with a liability of 106.8 billion dollars and has a lack of liquidity that prevents it from investing in new projects and even paying suppliers. Meanwhile, its refining goals are below original plans: the Dos Bocas refinery in Tabasco still does not deliver a single liter of gasoline to the national system and crude oil production has stagnated at 1.8 million barrels per day. including liquid hydrocarbons, and far from the 2.4 million barrels that the Executive promised at the beginning of his mandate.
The director of Pemex, Octavio Romero Oropeza, pointed out that for a long time the tax burden applicable to Pemex compromised its financial situation because its income was allocated and debt was contracted to pay taxes, that is, Pemex's income was not enough to pay taxes and debt was contracted. “In this Administration this condition changed, since the applicable rate of the main payment that Pemex makes to the Treasury, which is the Shared Utility Right, the DUC, has decreased by more than half, going from 65% in 2019 to 30% this year. This will allow Pemex to have greater financing flows to sustain its operating and investment expenses without the need to incur debt,” he said this Thursday at the National Palace.
In the 2023 balance sheet, the director of Pemex addressed the production of 1.8 million barrels per day, the production of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for 655,000 thousand barrels per day and the upcoming start-up of one of the emblematic projects of the Administration: the Dos Bocas refinery, in Tabasco, which according to Oropeza will now begin refining on January 31. The industrial complex was inaugurated in July 2022, however, to date the plant has not started producing a liter of gasoline. The factory, in which the Government has spent more than 12,000 million dollars, will begin with a production of 243,000 barrels of oil per day.
Romero Oropeza stated that during this Administration, Pemex considerably increased its assets by incorporating the new Dos Bocas refinery, 100% ownership of the Deer Park refinery, in Texas, and two new coking plants, the one in Tula and the one in Salina. Cross; as well as 10 new drilling rigs. The manager acknowledged that the self-sufficiency in fuel production that this Administration had promised will be achieved in 2025.
In this extensive annual report, however, the director of the parastatal did not specify how he will face the large debt of more than 298,000 million pesos that they reported for the third quarter of 2023, as well as the strategy to cover debt maturities of 11,000 million pesos. dollars this year, low in an environment with low oil prices and with a Mexican mix trading at 67 dollars per barrel.
The specialist Gonzalo Monroy recognizes that the acquisition of Deer Park – for 600 million dollars – has been a resounding success for Pemex, but the majority of the products that come out of that Texan refinery remain in the United States and he observes with suspicion the figure of 340,000 barrels per day of crude oil that Dos Bocas has promised in its full operational capacity. “In the end there will be a train, in the end there will be an airport, in the end there will be a refinery, tangible works, but it was one of the worst uses of public resource money, given the other alternatives such as the purchase of Deer Park,” he says.
Monroy, director of the consulting firm GMEC, anticipates that Pemex will have to resort to a bond issue to refinance its debt—an issue similar to the one just announced by the Ministry of Finance—because until now they have used lines of credit, many of them unionized, at very high rates. This, accompanied by direct injections by the Ministry of Finance. The 2024 Economic Package contemplates a capital contribution from the Federal Government of 145,000 million pesos to cover the amortization of its debt and a reduction in the DUC. The Treasury's contribution is subject to Pemex's commitment to maintain moderate indebtedness and that, as far as possible, the balance of public debt reflects a reduction with respect to the balance of the previous year.
Fluvio Ruiz, former director of the oil company, mentions that the clear political will of the Government to support Petróleos Mexicanos when specific circumstances require it is not enough. “The only way for Pemex to make decisions based on the logic of the oil industry is for the Mexican State to resolve to carry out the deep and redistributive tax reform that the country needs to grow with equity. As long as Pemex lacks budgetary and management autonomy and continues to be the main source of tax revenue and is used as a factor in the adjustment of national accounts; “financial short-termism will continue to be imposed as the axis of their strategic decisions,” he mentions.
Experts in the energy sector agree that the oil company's most pressing red flag is its lack of liquidity and warn that major surgery is required to revive the company's finances. Energy industry analyst and advisor, Ramsés Pech, adds that the Government's plan to use oil from national refineries for domestic gasoline production will open a gap in foreign exchange from crude oil exports and will force a change in the Income Law that is based on the price of the Mexican mixture sold abroad. “Deer Park is profitable because it sells the fuel in the United States and the production of Dos Bocas will only cover between 15% and 18% of the total demand for gasoline, jet fuel and diesel in Mexico,” he says.
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