Mexico Anticipates Petroleum Trade Deficit
Posted on: Monday, 10 March 2008, 06:00 CDT
Text of report by respected Mexican business newspaper El Financiero website on 6 March
[Report by Esther Arzate: Mexican Petroleum Trade Surplus Coming to an End]
The trade balance in Mexican petroleum products could stop being a surplus and turn into a deficit in the medium term.
Last year Mexico recorded foreign currency revenue from exports of petroleum products totalling 42,885,844,000 dollars, and imports amounted to 25,704,844,000 dolalrs, so the surplus was 17.181 billion dolalrs.
Nevertheless, also taking into account foreign purchases of petrochemical products and natural gas made by private companies - not counted by Mexican Petroleum [Pemex] -imports totalled around 34 billion dolars, so the real surplus is under 7 billion dollars.
In the opinion of the Energy Secretariat (Sener), next year that surplus -which had been maintained for years -could disappear, because of rising demand for natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, diesel, and gasoline.
When asked about this matter, Senate Energy Committee Chairman Francisco Labastida Ochoa said that he thought that the deficit scenario will indeed happen, but not until the end of this six-year period.
The senator pointed out that one of the factors aggravating the problem is that Mexico depends excessively on hydrocarbons: 90 per cent of primary energy comes from petroleum and gas, in contrast to the rest of the world, where that figure is 60 per cent.
Mexico exports 42 billion dollars worth of petroleum and its derivatives and imports between 34 billion dollars and 36 billion dollars worth of gasoline, natural gas, and petrochemicals. The petroleum trade surplus is narrowing and will turn into a deficit during this six-year period.
In turn, the chairman of the Energy Commission of the National Association of Manufacturers (Canacintra), Alfredo Guillermo Phillips Greene, did not dare to estimate how long it will take the country to reverse the trade surplus and become dependent on energy from abroad. Nevertheless, he expressed the concern of the industrialists over "the rapid growth of the deficit in the trade balance," in hydrocarbons.
Today imports of petrochemicals and petroleum derivatives are forcing us to pay over 34 billion dollars because we import 40 per cent of the gasoline consumed by the country, "not to mention petrochemicals," because imports in 2007 recorded a value of around 18 billion dollars.
He added that the country cannot continue transferring new refineries abroad by means of Pemex's shortage of petroleum products. With what has been spent, we could have built the refineries needed to add more value to our petroleum and we could have stopped the foreign companies from appropriating this resource that belongs to the Mexican people.
On that matter, the director of the consulting firm Ortiz and Associates, Gilberto Ortiz, noted that the volume and value of purchases of refined products and energy now represent a serious risk for Mexico, because they signify foreign dependence.
He agreed with the Sener, the legislator, and Guillermo Phillips that the increase in imports is not a minor problem and must be addressed as soon as possible. He accused the federal government of not showing the will to stop the imports, since the construction of a refinery represents investments of between 7 billion and 10 billion dollars. That is the equivalent of a third of what is spent on fuel purchases from abroad.
They prefer to export crude oil and then purchase it after it is refined instead of developing refineries to eliminate the imports, he said critically. He admitted that the Sener is preparing a feasibility study for the construction of a refinery, but the Sener is betting that the private sector will build it, subject to the prior approval of the Congress of the Union. The government is trying to ignore its obligation to guarantee the energy supply, Gilberto Ortiz said.
Originally published by El Financiero website, Mexico City, in Spanish 6 Mar 08.
(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Americas. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: BBC Monitoring Americas
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