Photo: Deposit Photos

By KELIN DILLON

Though Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) under construction Dos Bocas refinery maintains its planned July 1, 2022, launch date, new reports reveal the crude oil processing plant will take more than a year to operate at full capacity, which is anticipated to occur in September of 2023.

As per López Obrador’s schedule, the full operations of Dos Bocas will coincide with Mexico’s independence celebrations, with plans to reveal the project’s maximum capacity on Sept. 15, 2023.

At this proposed date, Dos Bocas will purportedly cover 87 percent of Mexico’s gasoline consumption and 100 percent of its diesel consumption through the refinery’s own production, with the Secretariat of Energy (Sener) saying it will process “1.150, million barrels of crude oil per day during most of 2022 and reach 1.25 million barrels by the end of the same year.”

As of November of this year, Dos Bocas is 60 percent complete in its construction, with expectations for the facility to be ready for testing in January 2023.

According to the Refinery Business Case in Dos Bocas as approved by the Board of Directors of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Dos Bocas is set to provide between ​​74,900 and 177,110 barrels per day of regular and premium gasoline, and between 126,610 and 127,420 barrels per day of diesel.

The $8.91 billion project will then handle the majority of the volume required by Mexico’s National Refining System (SNR), which will require 1.5 million barrels of oil per day.

If all goes according to plan, Dos Bocas will be producing 471,000 more barrels of oil per day than required by the SNR.