Mexican state energy company Pemex exported 681,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in April, a year-on-year decrease of 31%, company numbers showed, as production has been declining for the past few months.

Pemex’s sales to its biggest export market, “America”, which mainly consists of the United States, amounted to 484,000 bpd in April, 16% lower year-on-year. Meanwhile, sales to Europe amounted to 99,000 bpd that month, 54% lower over the same time period.

Pemex, which published the figures late on Friday, gave no reason for the lower export numbers. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Crude oil exports have been declining for decades from an all-time height of 1.8 million bpd in 2004, when the company pumped some 3.4 million bpd.

Over the past decades, large fields have been depleted and new discoveries have failed to compensate for the decline.

The government has previously said that crude oil exports would decline as Pemex uses more for its domestic refineries and the Olmeca refinery in Dos Bocas.

However, Reuters revealed last week that the new refinery only started taking in 16,300 bpd in mid-May.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s Olmeca refinery in the port of Dos Bocas, in the southern state Tabasco, has been running over budget and behind schedule. Startup has been pushed back repeatedly over the past two years.
Pemex officials have in the past said that production had taken a hit after several fields declined.

Last week, two sources at the company said it was also affected by oil service companies that partially or completely started operating after they did not get paid.

To be sure, Pemex’s six local refineries substantially increased local processing during the six-year term of Lopez Obrador that will end in October. In April, these refineries processed on average 950,699 bpd, almost 4% more year-on-year.

This compares to an average of 611,000 bpd at the end of the past government in late 2018. Together, they have a capacity to process 1.6 million bpd.

Pemex has said that it expects to process around 1.45 million bpd by the end of 2024 in all its Mexican refineries, including the new Olmeca refinery.

In April, Pemex pumped 1.5 million bpd of crude oil, the numbers showed, a 6.7% decline from a year earlier, and continuing a downward trend it started in May 2023.

Including condensate, a very low-density, very low-viscosity liquid hydrocarbon that usually comes to the surface with natural gas, Pemex produced 1.78 million bpd in April, a 6.3% decline from a year earlier.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez, Editing by Stefanie Eschenbacher and Alistair Bell)