Tag Archive for: Mexican oil

Mexico Likely To Keep Making The World’s Biggest Oil Hedge

/, ,

Baystreet Staff / Tsvetana Paraskova / Oilprice / July 9

 

The Mexican oil hedge, or the Hacienda Hedge, is considered the biggest hedging bet on Wall Street as well as perhaps the most secretive. It has earned Mexico—and a few large investment banks—billions of U.S. dollars.

Mexico buys put options from investment banks and typically hedges a whopping 200-300 million barrels of oil a year. With the put options, it has the right, but not the obligation, to sell oil at a previously set price and timing. But will this tradition continue under the newly elected administration?

Throughout his campaign, Mexico’s now president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador kept the oil industry on edge with comments and promises that he would review the landmark 2013 energy reform of outgoing President Enrique Peña Nieto that ended seven decades of oil monopoly in the country.

But the first signals from Lopez Obrador’s staff and advisors after he won Mexico’s presidential election last weekend are that the new president would not seek to backtrack on the energy reform, which allowed foreign oil firms to win contracts to pump Mexican oil.

Leftist Lopez Obrador and the new government, set to take office on December 1, will also likely continue with Mexico’s annual oil hedging program—considered to be the biggest annual oil hedge deal on Wall Street—an economic advisor to the president-elect told Bloomberg this week.

For 2018, Mexico locked in last year an average export price of US$46 per barrel of crude oil with its oil hedge. According to data by Mexico’s Finance Ministry, the country spent the equivalent of around US$1.25 billion on the oil hedge program for 2018, which was 21 percent higher than the oil hedge in 2016 to lock in prices for 2017. Mexico’s spending on the world’s biggest oil hedge has been at around US$1 billion over the past few years. State-run Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) is also hedging part of its production.

According to a member of president-elect Lopez Obrador’s economic team, Mexico’s oil hedge and the Pemex hedge are “working fine” and are likely to be left unchanged.

“The formula by which the government is calculating the price of oil is a very stable formula,” Abel Hibert told Bloomberg. “Using the hedges reduces uncertainty in financial markets,” the economic advisor said, adding, however, that the hedging program was not mentioned when energy policies were discussed at a meeting of the transition team this week.

Reducing uncertainty seems to be the key message from Lopez Obrador’s team after the election, even beyond the hedging program for oil.

Alfonso Romo, who is tipped to be the next president’s chief of staff, says that the new administration doesn’t want to create uncertainty and that there won’t be rescinding of the energy reform.

“What do we want to do? We want to take advantage of all of the enthusiasm we’ve generated to fix everything we can,” Romo told Bloomberg in an interview. “What don’t we want? To create uncertainty. Zero. I’m terrified of that.”

The incoming president’s chief of staff also said that he didn’t see changes to the 2013 reform.

“If anything happens, it would be done without hurting private investment,” Romo told Bloomberg.

With the energy reform of the outgoing president Peña Nieto, Mexico has attracted oil majors of the likes of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and Eni to its offshore areas, as it seeks to reverse a decline in its oil production.

Mexico needs a lot of money for offshore drilling, and “no one will fight success” if it manages to boost oil production, according to Romo.

The president-elect Lopez Obrador has said that he would have the already awarded contracts scrutinized for irregularities. But neither Romo nor the likely incoming finance minister Carlos Urzua expects the review of the contracts to reveal acts of corruption.

“If it looks good, on we go. It’s a contract we have to respect,” Urzua told Mexican television on Wednesday.

We are still five months away from the new president and government taking office, but the first messages after the election point that Mexico wants to reassure foreign oil investors and seek reconciliation rather than confrontation.

 

Baystreet Staff / Tsvetana Paraskova / Oilprice / July 9

 

 

Mexico Seeks New Home for Its Oil as Gulf Coast Turns to Canada

/

by Sheela Tobben and Amy Stillman

“Shipments of crude to the U.S. from Mexico fell to a new low last week, extending a trend that go back to when the Energy Information Administration began compiling preliminary weekly import data in June 2010.

Imports totaled 290,000 barrels a day in the week ended April 14, a 43 percent weekly drop that may have been triggered by weather-related closings at Mexico’s key export ports this month. But the shipments have been sinking for years. The 52-week average through April 14 was 561,000 barrels a day, down from about 630,000 a year earlier.

“The latest import levels are continuing a long trend,” Court Smith, director of research with shipbrokers MJLF & Associates, said by instant message from Stamford, Connecticut. “This is because of a combination of recent rise in refinery rates and historically declining production in Mexico.”

Production in Mexico has declined for 12 years in a row and this year will be less than 2 million barrels a day, the lowest level since 1980, according to Petroleos Mexicanos, the state producer, hurting sales of the benchmark Maya heavy crude.

“Pemex’s six refineries are also using more of the crude, lessening the need for exports. They processed 930,400 barrels a day in February, the most since June of last year, according to Mexico’s Energy Information Agency. The company expects to raise rates further to boost gasoline supply in the near term.

Refiners on the U.S. Gulf Coast, which are the primary users of Mexican crude, have been turning north for supplies, said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, a Houston-based consulting company. Canadian imports averaged 3.16 million barrels a day over the 52 weeks through April 14, up from about 3.02 million a year earlier.

“Canadian crudes are making more headway into the U.S judging from the full pipes coming down from Canada,” Lipow said by phone Friday. “We do expect to see more heavy crude from Canada when projects like Suncor Energy Inc.’s Fort Hills mine come online toward end of the year.”

Mexico has increasingly turned to Europe and Asia to make up for the U.S. demand shortfall. While overall Mexican crude exports fell in the first half of April, sales to Spain have increased since February, according to estimates from vessel-tracking and U.S. bills of lading data compiled by Bloomberg oil-market specialist Bert Gilbert. Exports to India, South Korea, Japan and China also grew in February, Mexico customs data compiled by Bloomberg show.

“While U.S. Gulf refineries were in maintenance, heavy crude oil producers have had to send their shipments to other regions, such as Asia, where heavy crude has recently strengthened thanks to the OPEC cut,” said Ixchel Castro, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie in Mexico City. “Greater shipments of Maya to Asia allows Pemex to achieve better margins for its exports.”

Mexico crude imports may pick up as gasoline demand rises for summer and refinery maintenance ends, Castro said in an emailed response to questions.

“This is the season where we would normally expect more heavy crude imports for U.S. Gulf Coast coking plants,” she said.

Pemex didn’t respond to requests for comment.”

21 de abril de 2017 16:05 GMT-5 updated  22 de abril de 2017 6:00 GMT-5

Bloomberg

 

Mexico’s Pemex Jan crude output drops 10.6 pct from a year ago

/

Mexican national oil company Pemex produced 10.6 percent less crude oil in January than in the same month last year, the company said.

January crude output averaged 2.02 million barrels per day (bpd), down from 2.26 million bpd during the same month in 2016, according to company data released on Friday.

Meanwhile, crude oil exports were down 3 percent in January compared to the year-ago period.

Shipments for the month averaged nearly 1.09 million bpd, compared to 1.12 million bpd exported in January 2016.

About half of Mexico’s crude exports currently go to the United States.

The Mexican government is in the midst of implementing a sweeping energy reform finalized in 2014 that ended the decades-long production monopoly enjoyed by Pemex, formally known as Petroleos Mexicanos.

The reform also paved the way for first-ever oil auctions open to private and foreign producers, four of which were concluded last year. While a range of oil companies won the blocks on offer, significant streams of new output are not expected for at least several years.

Mexico’s oil regulator, the administrator of the auctions, is expected to oversee three auctions covering a mix of shallow water and onshore fields, in addition to a deep water auction over the course of this year.

Mexican crude output has declined over the past dozen years from a peak of 3.4 million barrels per day in 2014.

The government expects crude production to average 1.94 million bpd this year, and between 1.9 million to 2.0 million bpd in 2018.

mexico-economia

Reuters (Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Editing by David Gregorio) / Hellenic Shipping News

27/02/2017

Crippled Latin Oil Giants Get No Miracle Cure in Post-OPEC Rally

/

For the three titans of Latin American oil — Pemex, PDVSA and Petrobras — last week’s OPEC-driven price rally won’t be enough to halt a slow descent from the ranks of international crude heavyweights.

Even as news of the cartel’s 1.2 million-barrel-a-day output cut spurred the steepest three-day oil gain in 15 months, the biggest Latin American producers remain hobbled by financial, political, technical and structural problems. Mexico and Brazil have been turning to outside investors to help boost output, with Mexico on Monday offering up stakes for the first time to drill in its deep waters.

Oil prices are an especially pressing issue for the behemoths responsible for large chunks of their local and national economies, all while supplying one of every 13 barrels of crude produced around the globe every day. Unlike North American explorers who were free to fire workers and abandon costly, high-risk projects as crude collapsed, the Latin companies operate under close bureaucratic controls that hinder their ability to respond to market forces, said Thomas McNulty of Navigant Consulting Inc.

“Higher prices are always a good thing but these are state-owned quasi-companies that have tremendous social obligations to their countries and little freedom to take rational cost-cutting steps,” said McNulty, director of Navigant’s valuations and financial risk management practice. “U.S. companies have to pay taxes, sure, but they don’t have to build schools.”

Petroleo Brasileiro SA said it isn’t changing its business plan in response to OPEC’s production agreement. Mexico’s Energy Ministry said it won’t change its auction plans because of OPEC. Petroleos de Venezuela SA, as the Venezuelan state-oil company is formally known, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Brent Surge

Brent crude, the international benchmark, surged as much as 15 percent in the three trading sessions following a Nov. 30 meeting at which the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to individual production cuts for the first time in eight years. The three-day rally was the largest since August 2015. Brent dipped to a 12-year low around $27 a barrel as recently as January; since then, the price has doubled to more than $54.

“Higher prices are positive for these companies to varying degrees,” said Lucas Aristizabal, a senior director at credit-rating company Fitch Inc. For Petroleos Mexicanos and PDVSA, the benefits are diminished by staggering debt loads that eat up cash that could otherwise go toward drilling to sustain production and replenish spent reserves, he said.

“Pemex needs much higher prices than this under the current taxation scheme to become cash-flow neutral while investing enough to replenish reserves,” Aristizabal said.

Mexican Oil

Once the world’s third-largest oil producer, Mexico now pumps less than the U.S. state of Texas, thanks to dwindling output from the once-gargantuan Cantarell field and lack of investment in new drilling technology. Aristizabal estimated the Mexican company, whose nearly $100 billion in debt is more than twice that of Exxon Mobil Corp., needs crude to fetch $80 a barrel to $100 a barrel to escape it downward spiral.

Mexico’s deep-water oil auction is designed to attract international oil giants to develop offshore production. It’s a crucial test of foreign investment, with Mexican oil output forecast to fall below 2 million barrels a day next year, the lowest level since 1980.

Pemex CEO Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya praised the OPEC agreement and price rise as “a breath of fresh air.

“It’s a good development for the energy market and for Pemex,” he said in a Dec. 1 interview on Bloomberg Television.

PDVSA Payments

PDVSA, facing $6.4 billion in debts coming due next year, won’t get much relief from its liquidity crisis, despite the nascent crude rally, Aristizabal said. Company Chairman Eulogio Del Pino said the cut may push oil prices to $70 in six months. Added cash is important as the producer uses a 30-day grace period to pay interest due on a 2035 bond. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has blamed the U.S. Treasury and Citigroup Inc. for the delayed payment.

Venezuela is one of only two cartel members in the Western Hemisphere, and PDVSA will be required to cut some output. That means abandoning some of the potential upside from the price increase, Aristizabal said.

Petrobras, which has been enmeshed in Brazil’s biggest corruption scandal, is in a better position to take advantage of rising prices than it was in 2011 when crude surged past $100 a barrel. The previous Brazilian administration of Dilma Rousseff pressured the state-controlled company to keep domestic gasoline and diesel prices below international levels in an effort to contain inflation, costing an estimated $35 billion in fuel subsidies in the middle of a commodities boom.

Fuel Sales

The Rio de Janeiro-based producer has been selling fuel at a premium for the past two years, partially recovering the losses from import subsidies. In October, the company set a policy of monthly revisions to guarantee prices remain above import costs. Petrobras reiterated its commitment to keep fuel prices above international parity in an e-mailed response to questions.

Rising prices will also guarantee the viability of deep-water fields that are estimated to hold billions of barrels of oil. Chief Executive Officer Pedro Parente has said the company’s break-even cost is around $40 a barrel. Petrobras has been in talks with potential bidders, including Total SA, for joint ventures to get oil from the so-called pre-salt areas offshore.

Brazil’s energy ministry has said it has no authority to set production limits for Petrobras and other companies producing in Latin America’s largest economy, offering the potential for it to capitalize with more output as OPEC members scale back.

Copyright: Bloomberg

Over 20 Oil Companies Register for Auction Mexican Gulf Blocks

/

For the auction of 10 blocks in waters of the Gulf of Mexico 21 oil companies have registered to participate, among them Spanish Repsol, Norwegian Statoil and French Total, together with Mexican Pemex, it was known today.

British BP, Anglo-Dutch Shell, Chevron and Exxon Mobil, both of the United States have also registered.

These four international megacorporations, which in the past made up the influential group known as The Seven Sisters, and for decades were owners of the Mexican crude, attempt to recover the exploitation of oil fields, says daily La Jornada.

Through the license contract, the National Commission of Hydrocarbons (CNH) allows winner companies to exploit oil deposits.

Up to 1938, before nationalization of the oil industry, decreed by president Lazaro Cardenas, seven foreign companies -five of the U.S. and two British- were owners of Mexican oil.

As it transcended, the seven transnationals were baptized by Enrico Mattei, considered father of the Italian energy industry, as the Seven Sisters.

The opening date for presentation of proposals for handing concessions on exploitation of a máximum period of 50 years of the 10 auctioned blocks, located in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, will be set on December 5, 2016.

Copyright: Prensa Latina

New provisions for the use of associated natural gas

/

The new technical provisions emitted by CNH (National Hydrocarbons Commission) came into effect January 8th, which include the use and maximization of  the economic value of associated natural gas in the exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons.

The main objective of these provisions is the structuring of programs based on procedures, requirements and criteria to define the goal of taking advantage of natural gas associated by holders of allocations and contracts for exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons, both in non-conventional and conventional deposits.

For this purpose, the CNH will convene through hearings Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) that jointly review manifests or use programs delivered to the Commission. Whatever is derived from the review, a work plan will be established so that in 2016 Pemex can present the Programas de Aprovechamiento de Gas Natural Asociado for each current assignment. PEMEX may refer to the Commission for consideration, modifications to use with the Programas de Aprovechamiento de Gas Natural Asociado as a result of the presentation for approval or modification of plans.

Finally, it is important to mention that these provisions are of general observance and compulsory for oil operators carrying out activities of exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons, which involve extraction and utilization of associated natural gas.

associated natural gas