Pemex must pay amortizations between 5,500 and 6,000 million dollars in Q1: Romero Oropeza

In the first quarter of this 2023 Pemex must pay between 5,500 and 6,000 million dollars in debt amortizations, for which reason it is negotiating with the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SCHP) which mechanism to use for said payment, informed the general director of the state company, Octavio Romero, in the morning conference.

However, according to Arturo Carranza, an analyst at the energy sectorit will not be easy for the dependency to justify a new support to the state company due to the general panorama of Public Finances.

“They are jointly looking for a decision that is more profitable for the Treasury. The interesting thing is to see the general panorama of Public Finances; the margin is narrow. It is not easy for the Treasury to justify the support to Pemex“said the specialist.

In the morning conference, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday that the government would be willing to help state oil company Pemex with its debt if necessary.

“This year we have maturities in January, February, March, they are not 105,000 million dollars, they are of the order of 5,500 million dollars, we are looking for alternatives to pay amortizations,” said Romero Oropeza.

It should be noted that in his Business Plan 2023-2027 Pemex reported that it will limit the search for financing in the market and would look for alternatives in an effort to stabilize its debt load at 105,000 million dollars until 2027.

“Pemex will seek to limit activity and direct participation in the markets, favoring more discreet and innovative financial structures.” The plan did not provide details on what types of structures would be searched.

For Carranza, it is true that for the first quarter, Pemex would not have the capacity to face amortization payments. “Pemex has not been able to generate sufficient cash flow to pay amortization payments on its own even though high oil prices have made it less dependent.”

According to their trimester report Most recently (Third quarter of 2022), Pemex has revolving credit lines for liquidity management for up to a total of 7.7 billion dollars and 37 billion dollars. As of October 25, 2022, 1,200 million of the lines in dollars and 17,000 million of the lines in pesos were available.

In that same report, in the category of “Contributions from the Federal Government”a figure of 66,731 million pesos (3,337 million dollars) is shown as of September 2022. However, an IMCO report indicates that between January and September 2022 Pemex received 108,000 million pesos for capital contributions: 67,900 million pesos, 22,500 million pesos and 17,600 million in the first, second and third quarters of the year, respectively.