Mexico’s Pemex scrambles for new refinery partner

Mexican state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos, also known as Pemex, plans to choose a partner at the end of October to finish the development and operation of a $ 2 billion coking plant at its Tula refinery, government and Pemex sources said.

Pemex is looking for partners to improve the performance of its stateowned refineries, which currently process about 915,000 barrels per day ( bpd) of crude, well below their combined capacity of 1.6 million bpd.

Pemex had previously planned to select a partner before June but the process has fallen behind schedule “because of the complexity and the investment needed,” said a separate industry source with direct knowledge of the project.

Since May, Pemex has invited 56 firms to bid but will not launch a tender as planned, a Pemex source said.

Two years of sagging oil prices and mounting debt have forced the Mexican oil firm to seek equity partners to help fund key projects.

Japan’s Mitsui & Co, South Korea’s SK Group, Italy’s Eni, China’s PetroChina and Sinopec, and US oil major Chevron are among the companies interested in the project, sources told Reuters in April.

Tula, like two other Pemex refineries, lacks coking capacity, which boosts production of higher- value fuels like gasoline from Mexico’s increasingly heavy crude production.

Interested companies are being asked to present their proposals by the third week of August and Pemex will draw up a shortlist by September, two Pemex sources said.

Tula is Pemex’s second largest refinery, with a capacity to process 315,000 bpd.