MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mexico’s Madero refinery has not been able to fully restart operations since it was halted in December due to planned maintenance, reported Reuters with reference to the chief executive of state-run Pemex said, citing technical problems at the facility.
Pemex’s domestic refineries have been operating this year at 40 percent of their total capacity of 1.65 million barrels per day (bpd) amid outages, maintenance work and low profitability at some facilities.
The Madero refinery, located in northeastern Tamaulipas state, is the smallest of Pemex’s six refineries with crude processing capacity of 190,000 bpd.
It was scheduled to resume operations in January, but its full restart has been postponed several times. It has operated partially for brief periods during the year as the company says it is not profitable to significantly increase crude processing.
Pemex CEO Carlos Trevino said operational and technical problems, as well as lack of capital, were affecting Madero and also the 285,000-bpd Minatitlan refinery. Not all maintenance projects at the plants have been completed on time, he added.
"We should have restarted (the Madero refinery) almost three months ago," Trevino said in an interview with local broadcaster ADN40.
About the status of Minatitlan, in the eastern Gulf coast state of Veracruz, Trevino said it restarted a couple of weeks ago. He did not elaborate on the reasons or duration of the stoppage.
Pemex has also postponed in recent months its goal of processing more than 850,000 bpd of crude at its domestic refineries, which in some cases were also affected by storms and earthquakes last year. Trevino said that the processing figure could be surpassed by the end of the year.
As MRC wrote before, in June 2018, Petroleos Mexicanos disclosed the results of the bidding process for the rehabilitation and commissioning works to be carried out on the H-Oil Plant located in the Miguel Hidalgo refinery in Tula, in the state of Hidalgo. This project will increase the production of ultra-low sulphur gasoline, in compliance with environmental regulations in effect, and the handling of crude oil for production of other fuels, such as diesel and jet fuel.
Pemex, Mexican Petroleum, is a Mexican state-owned petroleum company. Pemex has a total asset worth of USD415.75 billion, and is the world's second largest non-publicly listed company by total market value, and Latin America's second largest enterprise by annual revenue as of 2009. Company produces such polymers, as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS).
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