The cost of building the new Olmeca refinery, in two mouths, Tabasco, would increase by at least 56% from the original proposal, reaching 12.5 billion dollars, according to sources consulted by Bloomberg, so the criticism of this project and the economic implications for the current administration were immediate.
And it is that the amount of investment originally proposed for the work was 8,000 million dollars, so the cost of the work would already accumulate an increase of 56.2 percent. A first price adjustment to $8.9 billion was announced by the management of Mexican oil (Pemex) in October 2020.
Construction of the 340,000-barrel-per-day Dos Bocas refinery is now projected to cost about $12.5 billion, according to people with knowledge of the situation who asked not to be identified because the information is not public. Friday.
The increase would be explained by factors such as the increase in the cost of construction materials and delays in the execution of the components of the work.
In this regard, the employer Claudio X. Gonzalez, twitteó A few minutes after the information was released, a new criticism of what he considers waste in the president’s administration Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
“Splurge, after splurge, after splurge. Ineptitude continues to cost us –Mexicans– very expensive!”, expressed the founder of yes for mexico.
Meanwhile, the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) recalled that while the government promises autonomy in the supply of gasoline for the country, this project is delayed and resources are allocated to the acquisition of a plant abroad: Deer Park, in Texas.
“The federal government affirmed that the purchase will allow autonomy in the supply of gasoline. However, the use of existing refineries has been overestimated in terms of capacity, and Dos Bocas will not be ready until 2024,” the agency tweeted.
When presenting the refining plan for Pemex the last days of December 2021, the Secretary of Energy, Dew Nahle, stated that the refinery will start operations in July of this year and according to the business projections presented, in 2023 it will be working at full capacity, processing 340,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
Nahle, who met this Friday with the head of Energy of the United States, Jennifer Granholm, assured in its latest progress report on the construction of the refinery that this week the reactor of the catalytic plant left Asia, while different containers are being built in Tuxpan and Pueblo Nuevo, Veracruz.
The commissioning of the refinery, as well as the acquisition of the deer park refinery, in Texas, and the rehabilitation of the six Pemex refineries, make up the cornerstone of an ambitious plan so that in 2023 the state company stops exporting crude oil and processes all its oil itself.
In December, the government promised to more than double this year the volume of crude processed by Pemex to one million 509,000 barrels per day, of which 309,000 will be worked in Deer Park, unit whose control was assumed by Pemex this week.
In 2023, the promise is to reach two million barrels per day processed, already with the contribution of Dos Bocas.
karol.garcia@eleconomista.mx
