“Pemex has a solid foundation for the next government”

Mexico City. The outlook for Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) is different and solid compared to the state it was in before the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, so the next federal administration will consolidate the change, said Octavio Romero Oropeza, general director of the state-owned company.

According to the reports that the oil company sent to the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV), in April-June it had losses of 255,937 million pesos due to exchange rate pressures, while the total debt stood at 99,391 million dollars, which meant a reduction of 1.8 percent compared to the amount observed at the end of 2023.

In an environment of change of administration, the starting platform for the next six-year term is solid and guarantees that what has been achieved will be consolidated.the official said in a call with investors to present the second quarter results.

During his last quarterly conference as head of Pemex, as the next one will be at the end of October, when the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo is already in office, Romero Oropeza commented that the panorama of the oil company is different from that found at the beginning of the current administration.

It is not an exaggeration to use the concept of rescue, since from many interpretations the prevailing condition in 2018 was precarious both substantively and financially.

He recalled that the company was suffering from critical operational deterioration, a weak financial condition, a lack of transparency and corruption problems.

In April-June, the oil company had losses of 255,937 million pesos, an amount that contrasts with the profits of 25,423 million pesos reported in the same period of 2023.

The result is explained by the decrease in total sales, the increase in the exchange loss, the decrease in the return on derivative financial instruments and the increase in the cost of sales.

However, the state-owned company indicated that the negative result was offset by the decrease in the impairment of fixed assets, as well as by the decrease in taxes and duties.

Romero Oropeza highlighted at the conference that Pemex’s debt stands at 99,391 million dollars, an amount that represented a reduction of 1.8 percent compared to the level reported in 2023.

The state-owned company stated in its report to the BMV that this decrease is due to its zero-debt policy.

In the second quarter of 2024, Pemex recorded total sales of 409 billion pesos, an amount 1.1 percent lower than the same period last year, due to a 16.1 percent decrease in export sales due to a lower volume of crude oil sold and the appreciation of the peso against the dollar.

Reinaldo Wences, deputy director of Evaluation and Regulatory Compliance at Pemex Industrial Transformation, said that in July the Olmeca Refinery will already process 100 thousand barrels of crude oil per day.

The current federal administration’s goal was to rescue Pemex, so one of the main actions was to reduce the shared utility right (DUC), a tax on crude oil extraction. The rate went from 65 percent in 2019 to 58 percent, then to 40 percent in 2023 and this year to 30 percent.

The crude oil extraction strategy in these almost 6 years changed from deep waters to onshore and shallow waters, which also involved reducing costs and time in the development of fields, restoring reserves and concentrating investments.

The production of liquid hydrocarbons was also stabilized, which from January to June of this year stood at 1,802,000, when in the same period of 2019 it was 1,661,000 barrels per day.