LatAmOil: Pemex’s Tula refinery back online

Mexico’s second-largest oil refinery has reportedly resumed regular commercial operations after being shut down for several weeks because of protests that blocked railway and road transport routes.

A source inside Pemex, Mexico’s national oil company (NOC), told Reuters last week that the 315,000 barrel per day (bpd) Tula plant, located in Hidalgo State, was operational once again. “Tula began operating again on Wednesday [October 20],” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pemex did not immediately confirm the report from Reuters. However, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stated during his daily press briefing on October 22 that the refinery was in production.

In response to questions from reporters about whether the Tula plant was still offline, Lopez Obrador gave an equivocal answer that addressed the impact of the road and rail blockades rather than the state of operations at the facility. Specifically, he said: “We do not have reports of problems.”