According to five sources familiar with the operations, Mexican state energy company Pemex is unlikely to produce any commercially viable motor fuels at its new Olmeca refinery before the end of 2023, despite pressure from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to have the facility ready before his term ends.
The $16.8 billion refinery, inaugurated by President Lopez Obrador in July 2022, has faced significant delays and technical challenges that mean it will be up to the incoming president, Claudia Sheinbaum, to try to make the refinery operational when she takes office on October 1.
Pemex CEO Octavio Romero had recently insisted the refinery would “work at full capacity next month,” but sources say this is impossible and that progress has been exaggerated for political reasons. Engineers are still working on individual parts of the refinery and face the complex challenge of linking them, a process that can take months.
Key components like the fluid catalytic cracking plant and hydrodesulfurization plant still need work, and the information shared publicly by officials “doesn’t take into consideration more technical criteria” around how a refinery operates, according to one of the sources, an engineer.
Pemex had tried to demonstrate the refinery’s operation by bringing in high-sulfur diesel, but this was not produced from crude oil as planned. The delays and technical challenges mean it will be up to the incoming president to try to make the refinery’s “dream a reality.”