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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mexican Energy Minister
Rocio Nahle said that construction of the country’s new refinery at the southern
Gulf coast port in Dos Bocas was almost a quarter completed, said Reuters.
A
confidant of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an energy
nationalist who favors a stronger state role in the sector, Nahle said
construction was 24% completed and had entered the next phase. The government
has said it aims to finish the refinery by 2022.
The government has put
an $8 billion price tag on the refinery, but independent analysts have said that
figure is low. Investors and ratings agencies have criticized the project,
arguing that resources should go instead to more profitable parts of state oil
company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.
"We want to be self-sufficient,”
Lopez Obrador reiterated at the same event, held in his home state, Tabasco.
“It’s very important that we continue with this project."
As MRC informed earlier,
European and U.S. oil refineries face a wave of closures due to plateauing fuel
demand, tightening environmental rules and overseas competition, prompting some
owners to opt for an easier alternative - converting plants to produce
biofuels.
As MRC wrote before, on
15 October, The European Commissionadopted the EU's chemicals strategy for
sustainability, describing it as the first step towards a zero-pollution
ambition for a toxic-free environment announced in the European Green
Deal.
We remind that
Russia's output of chemical products rose in August 2020 by 5% year on year. At
the same time, production of basic chemicals increased year on year by 5.3% in
the first eight months of 2020, according to Rosstat's data. According to the
Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary
form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-July output. August
production of benzene fell to 102,000 tonnes from 95,300 tonnes a month earlier
due to scheduled shutdowns for maintenance at several producers. Overall output
of this product reached 918,300 tonnes over the stated period, down by 0.9% year
on year.
At the same time, August production of primary polymers rose to
888,000 tonnes against 838,000 tonnes in July due to increased capacity
utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim, Stavrolen and Gazprom neftekhim Salavat. Overall
output of polymers in primary form totalled 6,630,000 tonnes over the stated
period, up by 15.2% year on year. |
