Mexico’s Pemex Widens Q4 Net Loss To $9 Billion   

Mexican state-owned oil firm Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) reported on Thursday a net loss of US$8.77 billion (169.8 billion Mexican pesos) for the fourth quarter of 2019, widened from a loss of US$8.1 billion (157.3 billion peso) for the same period of 2018, mainly due to lower crude oil exports.

For a decade and a half, Pemex and Mexico have been grappling with continuously falling crude oil production. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been a vocal critic of the energy reform of his predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto, who opened in 2013 Mexico’s oil and gas sector to private investment for the first time in seven decades.

López Obrador seeks a greater role for Pemex in reversing the downward trend in Mexican oil production and is criticizing the energy reform and the foreign oil firms for failing to do so.     

López Obrador and Pemex have grand plans for reversing the production decline. The company’s new strategic plan aims to guarantee “the country’s energy security and sovereignty” and targets to raise crude oil production to 2.48 million bpd by the end of this administration’s term in office—the end of 2024.  

To compare, Pemex’s crude oil and condensate production averaged 1.712 million bpd in the fourth quarter of 2019, down from an average production of 1.741 million bpd for the fourth quarter of 2018, according to Pemex’s results released today.

The lower production in Q4 2019 versus Q4 2018 was the result of natural decline of production at some mature fields, Pemex said, noting that the decline rate slowed down thanks to production from newer oilfields.

Pemex’s total revenues in Q4 2019 slumped by 22 percent compared to Q4 2018, with both domestic and foreign revenues down, due to lower prices of Mexican export blends, lower gasoline and diesel prices in Mexico, and lower volumes sold domestically and overseas.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

• Two Abundant Elements That Could Create A Superbattery
  
• Aramco To Invest $110 Billion In Huge Gas Field
  
• What Iran’s Election Result Means For Oil Markets