MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Mexico’s Dos Bocas refinery is set to produce an average of 290,000 barrels of gasoline per day (bpd) by the end of the year, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said yesterday.
Speaking at the presentation of an annual report on his administration, Lopez Obrador said the refinery will begin producing refined petroleum products this Friday, without providing any specifics.
“Today, petroleum products will begin to be produced at the new Dos Bocas refinery,” he said at the event in southern Mexico.
The refinery was formally inaugurated in July 2022 and received its first crude oil shipment in July of this year.
Located in the president’s home state of Tabasco near the Dos Bocas port on Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast, the Olmeca refinery, as it is officially known, is set to have a capacity to process 340,000 barrels per day.
The refinery is a signature project of Lopez Obrador, who considers it critical to helping Mexico reduce a longstanding dependence on gas and diesel imports, though it has been beset by production delays and mounting costs.
By the end of 2023 gasoline imports should be down to 250,000 bpd, about 20% of domestic demand, Lopez Obrador said.
The president, who has about a year left in power, said that in 2024 Mexico will stop importing gasoline and diesel because they will be produced locally with national crude.
Lopez Obrador had once targeted ending gasoline imports by the midway point of his 2018-2024 term. Under Mexican law, presidents can only serve a single period in office.
Lopez Obrador said new coking plants at state oil company Pemex’s Tula refinery in the central state of Hidalgo and at the Salina Cruz refinery in Oaxaca state should be built by the year’s end and by next July, respectively, boosting gas production.