According to Reuters, Pemex plans to reduce crude exports by at least 330,000 barrels per day (bpd) in May as Mexico seeks to move toward self-sufficiency for fuel, Reuters reported on Monday, April 15.
The news agency said that the information came from two sources, both of whom are traders.
Citing those sources, Reuters said that the planned cuts would leave Pemex customers in the United States, Europe, and Asia with a third less supply. Pemex exported just over 1 million bpd of crude last year and 945,000 bpd in the first two months of 2024.
Exports are set to fall from early 2023 levels this month. Reuters reported last week that Pemex had asked its trading unit PMI Comercio Internacional to cancel up to 436,000 bpd of exports in April as it prepares to process oil at the new Olmeca refinery on the Tabasco coast.
Data published by the United States Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed that U.S. imports of crude from Mexico fell to 209,000 bpd in the week to April 5, the lowest level on record. U.S. imports from Mexico averaged 733,000 bpd in 2023.
Reuters reported Wednesday that “Pemex has no option other than applying monthly cuts to exports after its crude production in February fell to the lowest level in 45 years and the country’s refineries, including a new facility in the port of Dos Bocas, began taking in more crude oil.”
A Reuters source at Mexico’s Energy Ministry said that in addition to increasing domestic demand for fuel, another challenge for authorities is dwindling oil reserves, especially in old Gulf of Mexico fields. A number of new oil fields, such as the large Trion field jointly owned by Pemex and Australian company Woodside, are set to be developed, but it remains to be seen whether production will be sufficient to allow Mexico to achieve President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s coveted self-sufficiency objective. AMLO promised in 2020 that Mexico would be self-sufficient in gasoline by 2023 through the rehabilitation of the six existing refineries and the construction of a new one on the Tabasco coast.
Reuters quoted its Energy Minister source as saying that “there have been ‘discrepancies’ in Mexico’s data on [oil] reserves.”
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