Pemex to raise refinery output

Mexican NOC Pemex will increase its refined products output to 900,000 bpd in Q2 2018 from current levels of around 500,000 bpd, company CEO Carlos Treviño said on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters at the Energy Mexico 2018 conference, the executive said that due to several setbacks at different facilities, average fuel output in 2017 had been around 915,100 bpd, while the country’s six refineries together have a refining capacity of 1.6 million bpd.

To reach this target, Pemex is finishing up work at refineries such as Madero and Salina Cruz, the first of which underwent a maintenance programme at the end of 2017, while the latter was damaged by a fire, flooding and an earthquake last year.

Treviño also said that Pemex was gearing up for more E&P farm-out tenders in 2018, likely consisting of 27 fields grouped into seven different clusters. The areas, which Pemex was granted in 2014’s Round 0, contain reserves of around 400 million boe.

The farm-outs are part of the NOC’s strategy to reverse declining production, which peaked in 2004 and reached lows of 1.94 million bopd in 2017.