Photo: Pixabay

By KELIN DILLON

According to new figures released by Mexico’s state-owned oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Pemex’s still-under-construction oil refinery Dos Bocas is projected to produce 164,000 barrels of gasoline per day by September.

The controversial Tabasco refinery is likewise expected to produce 130,000 barrels of diesel per day during the same period.

During his daily morning press conference on Tuesday, March 12, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) confirmed that the Dos Bocas refinery is slated to begin operations at the beginning of April following repeated delays.

López Obrador went on to say that the facility will have a production capacity of 340,000 barrels of crude oil per day at its full power.

Meanwhile, when speaking on the ongoing contention surrounding the purported large-scale pollution emitted from Pemex’s Cadereyta plant in Nuevo León, AMLO claimed that “other plants pollute more.”

“From December 2018 to 2023, the Cadereyta Pemex Refinery invested 10.162 billion pesos and 2.571 billion in 2024, with special attention to the environment in the planned rehabilitation of all its facilities, which has increased its reliability in terms of water, air and soil pollution,” said Pemex Petroleum Production Deputy Director Elizabeth Andrade Morales, claiming the Pemex plant has always complied with Mexico’s environmental standards.

“And as part of the agreements of the comprehensive strategic air quality management plan, the Cadereyta Refinery in recent years has reduced its fuel oil consumption by 90 percent and by 2024 with the programmed investment it will be eliminated 100 percent in the month of May,” continued Andrade. “The plant’s greenhouse gas emissions are expected to reduce by approximately 30,888 tons of carbon dioxide per year.”