Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Pemex, will sharply cut its oil exports in the coming year. It’s a big step toward Mexico producing oil 100% domestically, but with one Texas-sized exception.
Matt Smith is lead oil analyst for the Americas at Kpler. He told Texas Standard that Mexico is currently a major oil exporter. The plan to end those exports comes from the country’s president, who wants Mexico to be independent of other countries when it comes to energy.
Highlights from this segment:
– The goal of Mexican energy independence is very ambitious, given its history of energy outages and lack of investment in the infrastructure needed to improve reliability.
– Pemex currently exports 600,000 barrels of oil per day to the U.S. Though that would stop under the plan, Pemex has acquired all output from Shell’s Deer Park refinery in Texas, and that oil is expected to continue flowing into the U.S. This country would need to make up for some 500,000-550,000 additional barrels per day that would be unavailable after Mexico ends exports.
– The vast majority of Mexican crude imported into the U.S. currently passes through refineries along the Gulf of Mexico.
