Category: Mexico

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – At least four people died after a fire broke out on an oil processing platform in the Gulf of Mexico early on Wednesday, leading to the evacuation of 302 workers, Mexican state-run oil company Pemex said. The fire, which burned throughout the day, erupted overnight on the Abkatun Permanente platform in the oil-rich Bay of Campeche. Forty-five people were treated for injuries and 16 of them were hospitalized, two with serious injuries, Pemex said. Eight firefighting boats were brought in to battle the flames, Pemex said, noting that one of the fatalities was from the state-run giant and another was a contractor for Mexican oil services firm Cotemar. Two others have yet to be identified. Videos posted on Twitter showed the offshore platform engulfed in flames, lighting up the night sky, as rescue workers looked on from nearby ships. The fire broke out in the […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

(Bloomberg) — Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission lowered the country’s estimates for proven oil reserves and state-run Petroleos Mexicanos cut its 2015 production forecast after crude prices collapsed and its budget was reduced. Pemex cut its 2015 output forecast by more than 100,000 barrels to 2.288 millon barrels a day, Gustavo Hernandez, exploration and production director, said Thursday at a builders congress in Mexico City. Mexico’s proven oil reserves slid 3.1 percent to 13.02 billion barrels from a year earlier, Hydrocarbons Commissioner Juan Carlos Zepeda said Thursday in an interview at Bloomberg’s Mexico City offices. Pemex’s failure to boost reserves and drilling activity shows that opening the oil industry to outsiders is needed, Zepeda said. Mexico is opening its energy industry to foreign producers for the first time since 1938. Pemex drilled 120 wells in the fourth quarter, 36 percent less than a year earlier. “These numbers are distant from […]

Click here to view full article at www.bloomberg.com

MEXICO CITY, March 12 (Reuters) – Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex plans to take part in the first two public tenders of the so-called Round One opening of the country’s oil and gas industry, a senior executive said on Thursday. Mexico has already announced terms and conditions for the first phase of the sector opening, which follows a reform finalized last year that ended Pemex’s 75-year-old oil and gas monopoly in a bid to attract more private investment. Gustavo Hernandez, Pemex’s head of exploration and production, said the firm would take part in the "first two tenders" – one for 14 production and exploration areas and the second for five contracts spread over nine production fields. "A lot of companies have approached Pemex because we have knowledge of the shallow water basin with more than 40 years of exploration and 35 years of production," Hernandez told reporters after an […]

Click here to view full article at www.rigzone.com

Pemex Exploracion y Produccion can’t recover hundreds of millions of dollars lost on Mexican condensate smuggled across the Texas border by bandits and sold to Shell Chemical LP, ConocoPhillips Co., Continue Reading

(Bloomberg) — Petroleos Mexicanos is negotiating reduced rig rates with all of its providers after the state-owned oil producer posted a ninth straight quarterly loss on slumping crude prices. Pemex is in talks with oil service and jack-up rig providers to reduce daily rates after the board approved cutting more than $4 billion from its 2015 budget last week. The Mexico City-based company will seek cuts that will probably be less than the 35 percent to 40 percent reductions recommended by consulting firm IHS Inc., said Pemex’s exploration and production director. “We have talked with service companies and agreed that actions need to be taken in order to reduce the effect of the impact of the oil price reductions,” E&P Head Gustavo Hernandez said Friday on an earnings conference call. Pemex is analyzing a series of actions to reduce spending after reporting a quarterly net loss of $7.75 billion […]

Click here to view full article at www.bloomberg.com

(Bloomberg) — The Mexican government will cut 2015 spending by 0.7 percent of gross domestic product on the expectation that oil prices may remain low for years, Finance Minister Luis Videgaray said. Stocks extended declines. President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration will reduce spending by 124.3 billion pesos ($8.3 billion) this year from the level approved by lawmakers in November, Videgaray said at news conference in Mexico City. The government is canceling plans for a passenger train in the Yucatan peninsula and suspending a high-speed rail project meant to connect Mexico City and Queretaro, Videgaray said. The reductions will allow Mexico to avoid raising additional debt or increasing taxes, Videgaray said. Mexico’s state-owned oil and electricity companies will cut their own outlays, and all the reductions will have a marginal effect on 2015 growth, Videgaray said. “We will take measures not only addressing the current situation, but rather we’ll take […]

Click here to view full article at www.bloomberg.com

BIG TARGET: A Pemex petrochemicals plant in the city of Coatzacoalcos. Pemex provides a third of all Mexican government revenue – but is vulnerable to fraud and waste. Reuters identified $11.7 billion in Pemex contracts flagged as problematic by government auditors. But records show that authorities rarely act on those warnings. REUTERS/Oscar Martinez Mexican authorities have disregarded auditors’ warnings on billions of dollars of deals granted by the state oil giant, a Reuters examination shows. Among the businessmen who benefited: an alleged associate of the Zetas cartel. MEXICO CITY – The state-owned petroleum giant Pemex paid $9 million in 2011 to have an oil rig towed halfway round the world, from the United Arab Emirates to the Gulf of Mexico. When government auditors looked at the contract, they turned up some problems. The rig had the wrong equipment for the assignment, according to a report by Mexican congressional auditors. […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

Petroleos Mexicanos is in talks with the U.S. Department of Commerce to import 100,000 barrels a day of light crude to increase gasoline production and improve refining by Mexico ’s state-owned oil producer. Pemex, as the world’s ninth-largest oil producer is known, would mix the imports with its heavy oil, the Mexico City-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Negotiations with the U.S. about the proposal, which was presented last year, are continuing, Pemex said. Some companies have called for the U.S. to end its 40-year prohibition on oil exports, saying booming domestic output reduces the need to keep supplies at home. U.S. oil production has increased by 66 percent in the past five years, and a majority of that growth is in light oil from shale rock. The U.S. bans most exports of unrefined crude, with exceptions such as shipments to Canada. The U.S. exported a record […]

Click here to view full article at www.bloomberg.com

MEXICO CITY—Mexican state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos said Thursday it has requested permission from the U.S. Commerce Department to import light crude to Mexico from the U.S., with the aim of improving output at its Mexican refineries. The significant increase of light crude production in the U.S. presents an opportunity to mix that oil with Mexican heavy crude, and thus boost refining efficiency in Mexico, the company known as Pemex said. Pemex anticipates that it could import up to 100,000 barrels a day of light crude and condensates under the proposal, which it calls a “swap.” America has a long-standing ban on exporting crude-oil pumped in the U.S., but the Commerce Department recently issued new rules clarifying that some ultralight oil can freely flow out of the country to foreign buyers. Dubbed condensate by the energy industry, this light oil no longer needs to be fully processed at a […]

Click here to view full article at www.wsj.com

The 40-year old ban on most U.S. crude exports is set to be loosened after Mexico’s state-owned oil company asked for an exception. Petroleos Mexicanos is in talks with the U.S. Commerce Department to import 100,000 barrels a day of light crude to increase Mexico’s gasoline production and improve refining. Pemex, as the world’s ninth-largest oil producer is known, would send its heavy oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries in exchange. Oil producers including Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Continental Resources Inc. (CLR) have called for the U.S. to end the restrictions, saying booming domestic output reduces the need to keep supplies at home. U.S. oil supply has increased by 66 percent in the past five years, and a majority of that growth is in light oil from shale rock. It would be another incremental allowed export “that will help relieve the pressure on pricing of domestic light oil, […]

Click here to view full article at www.bloomberg.com