MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mexican Energy Minister Rocio Nahle said that a planned USD8 billion refinery at the Gulf coast port of Dos Bocas would not be canceled, reported Reuters.
Investors and ratings agencies have criticized the project over concerns that it would divert funds away from Mexican state oil company Pemex's more profitable exploration and production business.
"This government will build it," Nahle said in a radio interview. "Why would we backtrack on that? It is a viable project, it's a necessary project, it's a Pemex project."
The refinery in President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's home state of Tabasco was a signature campaign promise of the left-leaning energy nationalist. Lopez Obrador has said the refinery would help Mexico wean itself off its growing reliance on fuel imports, the vast majority of which come from US refiners.
As MRC informed before, in March 2019, the Mexican government announced that it will invite four companies to bid in a restricted tender to build the new Dos Bocas refinery for state oil company Pemex, said then Energy Minister Rocio Nahle. Dos Bocas would be Pemex’s seventh domestic refinery and is intended to help wean Mexico off growing fuel imports, a major campaign promise of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office in December 2018.
MRC