Andres Manual Lopez Obrador
Photographer: Cesar Rodriguez/Bloomberg
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Mexico to start awarding construction contract by March 2019
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Pemex plans to improve operations of current six refineries
Mexico plans to start awarding the construction of its seventh
refinery as soon as March 2019, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
said at an event at the Dos Bocas port, in Tabasco, even as the nation´s
refining system is operating at its lowest levels in three decades.
Unveiling
a plan for the nation’s refining system, Lopez Obrador said Mexico will
invest $8 billion in the new processing facility at Dos Bocas. "We are
going to start the bidding process for the refinery by March at latest,"
he said to a cheering crowd in the sun-drenched town in the Gulf of
Mexico, reiterating his intentions to boost fuel self-sufficiency and
end long-term declines in oil output. Mexico’s oil production, on track
for its 14th consecutive yearly decline, will rise "realistically" to
2.4 million barrels per day by 2024, he said.
Lopez Obrador said a lot of 566 hectares of federal land is
ready for the new plant, which will have crude processing capacity of
340,000 daily barrels, making it Mexico’s biggest refinery. It will
include 17 processing plants, and 93 storage tanks or facilities, and
link up to the Dos Bocas maritime terminal. A pipeline will be built
connecting the refinery to the port.
Companies such as Ica Fluor, a joint venture between Mexico’s
Empresas ICA SAB and Fluor Corp. in the U.S., and U.S.-based Bechtel,
have previously expressed interest in participating in the public tender
for the refinery project. Lopez Obrador didn´t said if the state-owned
oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, will operate the new facility.
"In
three years we will be producing the gasoline that we consume in the
country, so that now we can lower the prices of the fuel," he said.
Lopez Obrador also said the government will increase Pemex’s
budget by 75 billion pesos for 2019 so the company will be able to
invest in a series of new projects to improve its operations. He
reiterated his government will submit the 2019 budget to the Congress on
December 15 and said the nation won’t use the oil contingency fund to
finance the new oil policy.
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