Lopez Obrador seeks to boost Mexico oil output to 2.5
million bpd from 1.9 million
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[July 28, 2018]
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -
Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday his
administration will look to boost the country's crude oil production to
2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) from 1.9 million bpd now.
Lopez Obrador, elected in a landslide July 1 victory and who will take
office on Dec. 1, has said he is committed to expanding Mexico's oil and
gas output, which has declined steadily over the past 14 years due to a
lack of investment and natural depletion of oil fields.
The leftist leader said he will look to revamp the nation's six
refineries so they are operating at full capacity within two years, and
plans to build a new refinery in Dos Bocas in Mexico's southern Tabasco
state with an investment of 160 billion pesos ($8.6 billion) over three
years.
"With this new refinery and the rehabilitation of the six that already
exist we're going to make good on our campaign promise of stopping
purchases of gasoline abroad and of lowering fuel prices by the middle
of (my) six-year term," he said.
Mexico has imported an average of about 590,000 barrels per day (bpd) of
gasoline and another 232,000 bpd of diesel so far this year, almost all
of it from the United States, as gasoline output at the country's six
refineries owned and operated by state-run Pemex [PEMX.UL] has halved
since 2013, the first year of outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto's
term.
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Mexico's president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador looks on during
a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Mexico City,
Mexico July 27, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
He tapped Rocio Nahle, who also won a Senate seat in the election, to be energy
minister and named Octavio Romero Oropeza to be Pemex's next chief executive.
Lopez Obrador said his government would look to increase electricity production
by revamping Mexico's hydroelectric power stations.
"We're going to start by modernizing hydroelectric plants because we have
underutilized infrastructure. We're going to generate electricity with the dams
that currently exist," he said.
Lopez Obrador said he expects his administration to invest 175 billion pesos
($9.4 billion) next year to strengthen the energy sector.
(Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Adriana Barrera; Editing by Michael O'Boyle
and James Dalgleish)
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