Pemex ended López Obrador‘s six-year term as was the trend of almost his entire administration.
In the third quarter of 2024 the company lost again the sum of 79 thousand 134 million pesos.
This means 879 million pesos per day, which, by the way, was ‘small’ compared to the 251 billion in the second half of this year.
Pemex continues to have a losing business model.
It does not matter that it will soon be established in the Constitution that It is no longer a productive state company but from a public company, there is no viability for the company if the red numbers remain so high.
The main reason for Pemex’s losses derives from the results of its subsidiary Pemex Industrial Transformation (PTI).
If we consider the first nine months of this year, the loss of the part of the company dedicated to refining was 482 billion pesos.
The problem is that, with the orientation towards energy self-sufficiency, the room for maneuver to close inefficient refineries is very limited.
And the goal of producing the fuels we consume is distant. For example, the automotive gasoline sales were on average 670 thousand barrels per day until August, while the average import was 391 thousand barrels and domestic production was around 298 thousand barrels.
That is to say, despite a six-year period purportedly seeking self-sufficiency, we continue to import 58 percent of the gasoline we consume.
And refining brings with it monumental losses for the oil company.
Another very complicated item in Pemex’s operation corresponds to its financial debt of short term.
Although it has decreased slightly, at the end of the third quarter it is still 18 thousand 172 million dollars, which creates very high pressures on the company’s finances.
Perhaps the conversion of Pemex’s legal regime, to become a public company, will give it greater flexibility in its internal operation and in the relationship between subsidiaries, but it will do nothing to change a financial condition that is simply unsustainable.
A few days ago we published in this space that Claudia Sheinbaum’s government faces a riddle that is very difficult to solve, since it requires more income in a very complex economic context.
In the case of Pemex, if it insists on continuing with a basically losing operation, Its viability will depend on once again having enormous public sector transfers, when resources are scarce.
By the way, if you are unlucky enough to be a Pemex supplier you will face a bitter reality.
The debt of the company with its suppliers is of the order of 402 thousand 874 million pesos, according to the quarterly report published yesterday.
We knew that the López Obrador administration was going to inherit an oil company in crisis, which will eventually become a burden on public finances.
I think that in a few weeks we will be seeing the first measures to try to rescue her… although I don’t think they are enough and perhaps they are already coming too late.
One of them will be a financial operation to remove the burden of short-term maturities of 18 billion dollars.
We will see how the financial markets accept this decision, since the liability that would eventually be removed from Pemex will end up increasing that of the federal government.
There are no miracles in this matter and the challenge will be gigantic.
2024-10-30 13:25:00