Mexican Petroleum Reports Gasoline Imports Rise

Text of report by respected Mexican business newspaper El Financiero website on 23 September

[Report by Esther Arzate: Expenditures From Imported Gasoline Spills Over]

During the first eight months of this year Mexican Petroleum (Pemex) spent 10.538 billion dollars to purchase gasoline abroad, an amount practically equivalent to what it spent in the entire 2007 for the same purpose, that is, 10.676 billion dollars.

The cost of importing automotive fuel combined negatively with the continuous drop in crude oil production mainly as a result of the declining main oil field known as Cantarell, whose volume last August was below 1 million barrels per day, for the first time since 1995.

However, public finances were not affected because the high prices of petroleum in the international market -an average of 99.17 dollars per barrel -compensated for the revenue of foreign currency from petroleum exports. This revenue amounted to 34.831 billion dollars, which is higher than what Pemex obtained in all of 2006 (34.707 billion dollars), and slightly less than in 2007 when it reached 37.932 billion dollars.

In the monthly financial reports, Pemex explained that the amount allotted for importing gasoline increased by 1,170 per cent during the first eight months of 2004, when it spent 833 million dollars even though the volume increased by 415 per cent during the same period of time when it grew from 66,400 barrels per day to 342,000 barrels per day.

Pemex stated that gasoline imports went from 297,500 barrels per day from January to August 2007 to 342,300 barrels per day during the same period of time in 2008, equivalent to a 15 per cent growth.

This means that the national production of that fuel decreased, inasmuch as sales increased by 4.9 per cent as compared to the same period of time in 2007 when they reached 788,300 barrels per day. Gasoline consumption throughout the country has increased by 55 per cent in the last 10 years.

The Trend [subhead]

In the six plants that are part of the National Refining System, Pemex produced 1,501,400 barrels per day of petroleum byproducts such as gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, and others while the sales of these products in the domestic market reached 1,856,500 barrels per day with a value of 364.421 billion pesos [33.9515 billion dollars].

Meanwhile, Pemex reported that from January to August of this year the production of crude oil reached 2.834 million barrels per day, a volume 9.2 per cent less than the 3.123 million barrels per day production for the same period of time in 2007.

During the same eight months, crude oil exports amounted to 1.439 million barrels per day, 16 per cent less than for production from January-August 2007.

The main cause for the drop in crude oil production is the declining production at Cantarell, the largest oil deposit in the country and the second largest in the world, whose production in August plummeted to 988,000 barrels per day. Production in 2004 reached the record figure of 2.2 million barrels per day.

Average production at Cantarell stands at 1,110,100 barrels per day, 29.2 per cent less than the average for the same period of time in 2007. Meanwhile, production at Ku-Maloob-Zaap reached 688,800 barrels per day, 39 per cent more that the volume produced from January to August 2007.

In contrast with crude oil production, the extraction of natural gas in the country was 6.776 billion cu ft per day, a volume 14 per cent higher as compared to the production for the same period of time in 2007.

Originally published by El Financiero website, Mexico City, in Spanish 23 Sep 08.

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