Pemex debt will fall at the end of this 2022: Romero Oropeza

At the end of 2022, the debt balance of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) is estimated to amount to 100,436 million dollars, reported Octavio Romero Oropeza. “There has really been a deleveraging at Pemex,” he said.

During his appearance before the joint Energy and Infrastructure commissions of the Chamber of Deputies for the analysis of the Fourth Government Report of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the official assured that to fulfill its obligations “Pemex has not resorted to indebtedness; on the contrary, the balance of the debt has decreased”.

In front of the federal deputies, he detailed a sheet with bar graphs in green and red on the behavior of Pemex’s debt from 2013 to 2022, emphasizing the period corresponding to the current federal administration.

“You see a red box above the year 2020, 2021 and 2022, you see an amount in the green part and a red amount and a grand total above. The 4,792 million dollars that appear in red in the year 2020 come from a promissory note that Pemex has in its property, from the Treasury; that is to say, it is money that the Treasury has promised to deliver to Petróleos Mexicanos, it is a promissory note, it is Pemex money that cannot be made liquid”.

The state company requested permission from the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), he added, to be able to use the promissory note of its property.

“That would allow us to convert it into money, through banks; give it in guarantee. In a strict sense, it is not debt because it is money that belongs to Pemex, but for accounting reasons Pemex is forced to add it as debt, that is why it seems that from 105 (millions of dollars) we went up to 113, then we went down to 109 and then to 105.

According to the information presented by Romero Oropeza, the promissory note corresponding to 2022 amounts to 5,016 million dollars; hence, if said amount is assumed as debt, its estimated balance will amount to 105,452 million dollars at the end of this year.

Pemex, main contributor

In his opening speech, he said that Pemex is the main taxpayer in the country. Considering direct and indirect taxes, he specified, in the period from January to September 2021 against the same period this year, there was an increase of around 200,000 million pesos.

“We have given the federal government a very important amount of resources, the growth has been very significant, an additional 197,000 million compared to 2021,” he said, referring to the 439,730 million net pesos paid by the state company during the first half of the year. year corresponding to the payment of the right for shared utility of the right to extract hydrocarbons.

“Then, for example, you observe that Pemex with a trillion 162,000 million pesos of income in the first semester, paid 204,000 million pesos, which is equivalent to 17.6% of its income.

Then he detailed another sheet on the comparison of income and taxes paid in 2022 by the most important companies in Mexico. “There are the largest companies in the country, Pemex, América Móvil, Femsa, Walmart, Alfa, Grupo Bimbo, Cemex. Pemex with a billion 162,000 million pesos of income in the first half, paid 204,000 million pesos, which is equivalent to 17.6% of its income.

América Móvil, Femsa and Walmart together add up to one billion 127,000 million pesos in income, but pay 36,000 million pesos in taxes. This means that Pemex pays 5.5 times more than the three main companies in the country”.

The official assured that the purchase of the Deer Park refinery “was a magnificent deal. “We had a net result of 746 million dollars.”

rolando.ramos@eleconomista.mx