At the end of 2022, PMI Comercio Internacional, the company that manages imports and exports of crude oil products for Pemex, had 17 clients in five countries.
According to the Mexican government, among these countries, in 2022, 66.9% of Pemex’s crude oil exports were to customers in the United States and Canada, representing an increase of 10.2% over 2021.
PMI Comercio Internacional
Since 2014, as a result of the increased availability of light crude oil in the United States and other developing trends in international demand for imported crude oil, Pemex has expanded the scope of its geographic distribution and adapted its strategy to diversify and strengthen the position of Mexican crude oil in the international market.
Although Mexico is not a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), it has periodically announced increases and decreases in Pemex’s crude oil exports that reflect production revisions made by other oil-producing countries in order to contribute to the stabilization of crude oil prices.
In 2020, the price of crude oil was exceptionally volatile due to measures taken by numerous governments to combat the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
For example, in April 2020, OPEC and other non-OPEC oil-exporting countries, including Mexico and Russia, agreed to reduce global crude oil supply, which caused Mexico to reduce its crude oil production by 100,000 barrels per day in May and June 2020.
Pemex’s production was temporarily reduced by a fire on the Ku-Maloob-Zap complex platform in the Gulf of Mexico in August 2021, but production fully recovered within eight days of the explosion.
In December 2022, the OPEC Reference Basket (ORB) stood at $81.29 per barrel, while the annual average for 2022 was $100.08 per barrel.
International trade
Pemex imported 532.1 million cubic feet per day of natural gas in 2022, a 41.2% decrease from the 904.6 million cubic feet per day imported in 2021, and exported 0.7 million cubic feet per day of natural gas in 2022, a 7.5% decrease from 2021 natural gas exports of 0.8 million cubic feet per day.
According to a report released by OPEC on June 13, 2023, oil production in Mexico for 2023 is forecast to grow by 59,000 barrels per day, to an average of 2.1 million barrels per day due to higher production in April 2023, and improved expectations for the remainder of the year.
Pemex’s crude oil production from priority fields is expected to increase, as the decline in mature fields could offset gains from new fields, and production from foreign-operated fields is expected to increase.
