Pemex steadies bottom line, hones upstream focus

OREANDA-NEWS. August 01, 2016. Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex stabilised its financial losses in the second quarter, although crude production continued to decline and processing shrank on unplanned refinery shutdowns.

The company is starting to reap the fruit of tax relief approved in April, narrowing its second-quarter loss to 83.5bn pesos (\\$4.45bn) compared with Ps84.6bn a year earlier. Pemex, unlike other Mexican companies, is unable to deduct all of its operating costs from its tax bill, but the fiscal adjustment resulted in a tax and duties obligation of Ps68bn for the quarter, 38pc less than in the same quarter of 2015.

Crude production fell by 2pc on the year to 2.18mn b/d, with natural gas output down by 8pc to 4.95bn ft?/d (51bn m/yr). Downstream, Pemex cut refinery crude runs by 3.5pc to 1.02mn b/d.