Dos Bocas refinery will begin processing crude oil in July: Rocío Nahle

The new refinery that is still under construction in the southeast of Mexico and with which the country’s president hopes to count on to achieve “energy sovereignty”, will begin to process oil in July 2023, assured the Secretary of Energy, dew nahle.

The controversial infrastructure project, whose cost has more than doubled the initial budget of $8 billion, was announced to go live last year. However, it was inaugurated in July without being completed and the Mexican government said it would start tests and connections last December.

In a brief statement to the media on Monday night, after a meeting with the president Andres Manuel Lopez ObradorNahle announced that the refinery in Dos Bocas (Tabasco) will have its first load on July 1.

“We are doing very well,” she assured when asked if the Olmec refinerywhich will have a capacity to process 340,000 barrels per day (bpd), would be processing its first barrel of crude in July.

The work has been harshly criticized by opponents and specialists in the energy sector, who consider that it will not produce fuel in the short term and constitutes an expensive whim of the president, a nationalist in energy matters.

The state giant Pemex seeks to increase its crude production, which is around 1.7 million bpd, to allocate more hydrocarbon to local refining with a view to achieving López Obrador’s plan to achieve self-sufficiency in gasoline.

With this objective, in addition to the refinery in Tabasco, Pemex acquired its partner, the Anglo-Dutch Shellhis 50% of a plant in Deer ParkTexas, and launched a rehabilitation program for its six refineries in Mexico.