Mexico’s Amlo boosts Pemex budget by $3.7B

MEXICO’S new President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Sunday he would reverse shrinking investment in the state oil company by pouring $3.7 billion into Pemex next year, in a bid to boost crude and refined products’ output. “We are going to increase investment in Pemex by 75 billion pesos [$3.7 billion] from what was authorised for 2018.” The state oil giant has seen a drop in its production since 2004, when it extracted some 3.4 million barrels per day (bpd). Last October, the company produced just 1.7 million barrels of crude. The new government wants Pemex to produce some 2.4 million bpd by 2024. Amlo also pointed out that the energy industry was going through “a complex situation, difficult and not an ideological issue”.