LatAmOil: Pemex’s legacy refineries continue to underperform

Mexico’s national oil company (NOC) Pemex fell short of its goals for boosting refining capacity utilisation in 2022 and is likely to continue doing so in 2023-2024, despite ongoing efforts to improve performance.

As Mexico Business News noted on February 9, Pemex said previously that it hoped to see its six existing refineries – Cadereyta, Madero, Minatitlan, Salamanca, Salina Cruz and Tula – boost capacity utilisation to 1.375mn barrels per day (bpd) in 2023 and 2024. These six plants have a combined capacity of about 1.618mn bpd, so the plan aimed to bring utilisation levels to 85% of the total.

The NOC had also set its original target for 2022 at 1.2mn bpd, or about 74% of total capacity, but it later revised the figure downward to 900,000 bpd, slightly less than 56% of the total. Despite this cut, refinery throughput averaged 816,010 bpd last year, 9.3% short of the revised goal (though 14.6% above the 2021 average of 711,585 bpd).