President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said this Wednesday morning that the United States Government approved the sale of 50% of the Deer Park refinery, in the hands of Royal Dutch Shell, to the Mexican state Pemex.
The agreement is given after the Secretary of Finance announced a $ 3.5 billion capital injection from the government aimed at reducing the $ 113 billion debt burden of Pemex, the world’s most indebted oil company.
The purchase of 49.005% of the deer park refinery It also has the objective of increasing the sale of Pemex fuels, although it should be remembered that by locating in Houston, the national distribution will incur customs and logistics costs typical of imports, even if it is from the same company, in addition to being regulated by US competition authorities in a market where it could be more profitable to sell the products that are refined than to bring them to Mexico for commercialization.
Deer Park refinery in depth
- In 1993, Pemex acquired its stake in the refinery located in Houston, Texas, and partnered with Shell Oil Company.
- The refinery is designed to process heavy Mayan crude with up to 22 degrees API and high sulfur content.
- The Deer Park refinery has a crude processing capacity of 340,000 barrels per day and its plants allow it to process heavy and light crude without generating fuel oil.
- It produces around 110,000 barrels per day of gasoline, 90 million barrels of diesel, and 25 million barrels per day of jet fuel.
- It has been characterized by a utilization of over 80% of its capacity in recent years.
- Pemex currently holds 49.995% through its subsidiary PMI North America.
- After the gains of 872,885 million pesos in 2018, Pemex lost 1,438 million in 2019 and 4,056 million pesos in this refinery in 2020.
