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By KELIN DILLON

According to new reports, crude oil shipments from Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), have been rejected by U.S. refineries along the Gulf Coast because they claim the oil is unfit for processing.

The companies claim that the Mexican crude oil deliveries were saturated with high levels of water, which could impact Mexico’s position as the second-largest exporter of crude oil to the United States.

The oil was reportedly delivered with a 6 percent water content, a level six times the industry standard and equivalent to $2 million worth of the half-million standard cargo shipment.

As a result, Mexico’s Gulf Coast clients are purportedly turning to Canada and Colombia for higher-quality crude oil imports.

The United States notably imported a mere 149,000 barrels of Mexican crude oil per day to the United States between Jan. 25 and 31, 2025, down 71.5 percent.

Mexico’s oil quality has also seemingly impacted its internal oil refinement proces. The controversial mega refinery Dos Bocas is currently shut down and unable to process Pemex crude oil due to an oversaturation of salt in the supply.

According to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (CSP), water and salt saturation are common issues faced by oil companies worldwide and restoring oil to viability requires a simple process.

“It’s not that the crude oil will go bad with water and salt; it’s temporary and there is a way to solve it, there are technical mechanisms that allow removing the water and salinity,” she said during her daily morning press conference on Wednesday, Feb. 12.

Sheinbaum went on to say that the issue would be resolved within 10 days, adding that “there are no problems in Pemex, nor in oil production, they are situations that occur and that have occurred historically.”

Despite the promises of a quick resolution, Pemex currently boasts a $20 billion debt to its suppliers and an overall debt of $99 billion, positioning the state-owned company as the most indebted oil company in the world.