Pemex, Mexico’s debt-burdened state oil producer, has reported a fourth consecutive quarterly loss but lauded a slight increase in crude output as a hopeful sign for the strained finances of the count ry’s biggest company.  Pemex posted a net loss of 87.9bn pesos ($4.6bn) in the three months that ended September 30 compared with a profit of 26.8bn pesos in the same quarter last year. Sales fell 20 percent to 350.5bn pesos, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization fell 37 percent to 102bn pesos.

Mexico’s president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has vowed to rescue Pemex, which has $1oobn of financial debt, by offering tax cuts and dedicating more government capital to the company in an effort to reverse 14 years of oil production declines. Pemex’s crude output is currently around 1.7m barrels per day, down from 3.4m barrels per day at its peak in 2004.

In the third quarter, Pemex crude production increased to 1.694m daily barrels, a 1.2 percent gain compared to the previous quarter .  “The number one priority for Pemex, as outlined in our strategy presented in December, is to stabilise production,” Pemex’s chief financial officer, Alberto Velazquez, said on the conference call. “The strategy has been successful. After a long history of 14 years of oil production declines, Pemex has returned to increase petroleum production.”

While the minimal improvement in crude production was hailed as positive, the third quarter result was the worst for Pemex thus far in 2019, as accumulated losses now total 176.4 billion pesos ($9.25bn) through the first nine months of the  year.