MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s state oil giant Pemex on Friday posted a massive $3bn third quarter loss, citing lower export volumes, falling fuel prices and a negative foreign exchange amid a controversial push for energy reform.
The monopoly’s sharp loss compared to a profit of $1.87bn in the same period last year, according to a company filing with the Mexican stock exchange.
Pemex, which funds around 40 percent of the government coffers, reported $31.46m in sales in the July to September period, a 0.1 percent increase from last year. The company’s net debt rose by 2.7 percent to $62.1m.
In August, President Enrique Pena Nieto unveiled a controversial reform plan to open the oil sector to foreign investments in order to increase production and modernize the state-run company.
The leftist opposition accuses Pena Nieto of trying to privatise Pemex, 75 years after foreign firms were thrown out of the energy sector. But the president rejects the accusation, saying his proposal calls for profit-sharing deals with private firms while the oil would remain Mexico’s property.
The company’s oil production has fallen in recent years, from 3.4 million barrels per day in 2004 to 2.5 million in the third quarter of 2013.
Raymundo Tenorio, director of business studies at Monterrey Technology university, said the situation at Pemex has been “nosediving” and that he expects losses for the full year to reach around $3bn
Some 55.2 percent of the company’s sales revenues, around $70bn, were destined every year for taxes to the state, he said.
Tenorio said the reform proposed by Pena Nieto would not improve the company’s fiscal burden, meaning that Pemex would remain “the safe deposit box of public finances”.
AFP
