Adriana Barrera News

Cuba has begun using its own tankers to ramp up crude imports from Mexico, which in the second quarter surpassed Russia as a key oil provider to the fuel-thirsty island, according to vessel monitoring data.Following days-long lines to fill drivers' tanks and power blackouts, the communist-run nation saddled with harsh U.S. economic sanctions has broadened its sources of oil imports in a move to ease fuel scarcity, replenish stocks and reduce dependence on its traditional and largest supplier, Venezuela. Washington has also sanctioned Venezuela's oil industry since 2019 over election-fraud claims.Mexico has emerged as a top provider, sending oil on a vessel owned by state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and ships managed by Cuba.

A diesel cargo sent by Mexico's state-run Pemex [was] due to arrive in Cuba's Havana port on Monday, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and sources, after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promised humanitarian aid to the Communist-run island, [Reuters reported Monday.]The Jose Maria Morelos II, a tanker owned and managed by a Pemex unit, is on its way to the Caribbean island after Mexico's left-leaning government last week announced it would send two humanitarian shipments, including food and diesel, to Cuba.Authorities in Havana have long said that a decades-old U.S. embargo on Cuba has caused widespread hardship on the island, where thousands took to the streets this month in protests.

A fire on the ocean surface west of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula early on Friday has been extinguished, state oil company Pemex said, blaming a gas leak from an underwater pipeline for sparking the blaze captured in videos that went viral.Bright orange flames jumping out of water resembling molten lava was dubbed an "eye of fire" on social media due to the blaze's circular shape, as it raged a short distance from a Pemex oil platform.The fire took more than five hours to fully put out…

An oil production and storage vessel operated by Mexican state oil firm Pemex in the Gulf of Mexico has resumed crude shipments after a tanker collision halted exports earlier this month, according to a person with knowledge of the matter and data from Refinitiv Eikon.The FPSO facility (floating production, storage and offloading), which has the capacity to store up to 2.2 million barrels of crude, halted loading of vessels for exports after making "contact" with the Olympic Future tanker on July 1 due to bad weather conditions…

The trading arm of Mexican state oil company Pemex is mulling options to slash the number of fuel cargoes the country imports in May and June as demand plummets because of the coronavirus, three sources close to the talks told Reuters.Pemex last week declared force majeure over fuel supplies from its trading arm PMI Comercio Internacional after a bottleneck of more than 60 vessels built up outside Mexican ports, waiting to discharge.But PMI still has not declared force majeure…

More than 20 vessels loaded with fuel have waited a week or more to discharge gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas at Mexico's ports, according to Refinitiv Eikon data, as demand craters due to coronavirus-related lockdowns.Mexico imports most of its fuel and has very limited storage capacity. State oil company Pemex and about a dozen independent importers typically discharge at least two gasoline cargoes per day, mostly coming from the United States.In January…

A cruise ship stuck off Panama’s Pacific coast after four passengers died and more than 130 others developed influenza-like symptoms, including at least two with the coronavirus, will be allowed to proceed through the Panama Canal, the government said on Saturday.Holland America Line’s 238-meter (781-foot) MS Zaandam vessel can now continue its trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but Panama’s government underscored that no passengers or crew members would be allowed to set foot…

Hackers demanded about $5 million in bitcoin from Mexico's Pemex, they told Reuters on Tuesday, saying the state oil firm missed a special discount by not paying immediately after a cyberattack that fouled up the company's systems.The hack, which Pemex said it detected on Sunday, forced the company to shut down computers across Mexico, freezing systems such as payments, according to five employees and internal emails.Hackers have increasingly targeted companies with malicious programs that can cripple systems overseeing everything from supply chains to manufacturing…

Six people died in eastern Mexico on Saturday after they were buried in landslides caused by intense rainfall from the remnants of now-downgraded Tropical Storm Earl, an emergency services official said. The six deaths involved two separate families in eastern Veracruz state, emergency services spokesman Manuel Escalera said. He added that local authorities were continuing to monitor rising rivers and saturated soil that could trigger additional landslides. Earl's maximum wind speed dropped to 30 mph (48 kmh) by Saturday afternoon, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. It was located approximately 105 miles (169 km) east of Mexico City, after pounding portions of Central America and crossing Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula over the past couple days.

State-run oil company Pemex said on Tuesday it had set up lines of credit with Mexico's development banks to improve liquidity and start paying back billions of dollars in debt to suppliers, as the firm seeks to repair finances hit by a rout in crude prices. Pemex has deferred payments to dozens of suppliers and contractors since last year, racking up some 147 billion Mexican pesos ($8.2 billion) in debt by the end of 2015. So far, it has paid back 20 billion pesos. Juan Pablo Newman…

Mexico's Pemex said on Friday it had agreed to ship six million barrels of its light crude to Japan's largest refinery over the next six months, as the state-run oil company seeks to further develop its ties with Asia. The shipments of Isthmus crude will go via six cargoes between this August and January 2016 to JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. Pemex already shipped about 4 million barrels to JX Nippon in the first half of the year. Pemex had been negotiating with buyers in Japan and South Korea earlier this year about the chloride content of its crude, and said it would offer discounts if the level of the chemical that can cause corrosion was higher than usual. The crude will be shipped from Pemex's Salina Cruz terminal on the southern Pacific coast of Mexico.

Mexico auctioned only two of 14 blocks in a pivotal oil and gas tender on Wednesday, falling far short of the government's modest expectations as it begins to open up the long-nationalized industry to private investment. Both the shallow water exploration and production contracts were awarded to the same consortium made up of Mexico's Sierra Oil & Gas, U.S. firm Talos Energy and Britain's Premier Oil. The other 12 blocks received no bids, or none that cleared the bar set by Mexico's finance ministry. All told, it was an inauspicious start to the rollout of President Enrique Pena Nieto's signature economic reform. In the second block up for grabs, the consortium offered 55.99 percent of pre-tax profits to the state, plus a 10 percent additional work program commitment.

Mexico's oil regulator voted on Friday to relax rules on bidding terms and contracts that form the first step in a historic sector opening that kicks off this summer with the public auction of 14 shallow water fields. The July auction will mark the first of five packages of oil fields up for grabs, part of a so-called Round One tender that follows a major energy reform approved by Congress last year. The constitutional reform ended the decades-long monopoly enjoyed by state-owned oil company Pemex and aims to reverse a decade-long slide in Mexican crude output. Responding to complaints from private and foreign companies, the national hydrocarbons commission, or CNH, eliminated caps on how many contracts firms can bid on.

Mexico's oil regulator voted on Friday to relax previously established rules on bidding terms and contracts that form the first step in an historic sector opening that kicks off this summer with the public auction of 14 shallow water fields. The July auction will mark the first of five packages of oil fields up for grabs, part of a so-called Round One tender that follows a major energy reform approved by Congress last year. The constitutional reform ended the decades-long monopoly enjoyed by state-owned oil company Pemex and aims to reverse a decade-long slide in Mexican crude output. Responding to complaints from private and foreign companies, the national hydrocarbons commission, or CNH, eliminated caps on how many contracts firms can bid on.

Mexico has approved the terms for five shallow water areas containing around 355 million barrels of oil equivalent as part of its Round One tender to open up the country's oil fields, the country's energy regulator said on Friday.   The whole of Round One covers areas including the Chicontepec basin and the Perdido area, as well as shallow and deep waters, and sees investment of up to $50.5 billion between 2015 and 2018, the energy regualtor said in November.     (Reporting by Adriana Barrera, Ana Isabel Martinez, Christine Murray and Joanna Zuckerman Bernstein; Editing by Simon Gardner)

Mexico's state-run oil company Pemex said on Friday its crude oil production held steady in November from the previous month at 2.363 million barrels per day (bpd), the lowest monthly figure on record. Crude export volumes in November were up 8.1 percent from October at 1.23 million bpd, Pemex said. Energy Ministry output records date to January 1990. (Reporting by Adriana Barrera; Editing by Leslie Adler)

The United States is set to slap anti-subsidy import duties on Mexican sugar after a preliminary decision expected to be formally annouced later on Tuesday, the president of Mexico's suger chamber said ahead of the ruling. The decision to slap duties on sugar imports from Mexico is backed by U.S. sugar industry complaints of unfair competition from subsidized sweeteners in the industry's first trade case in decades. But Juan Cortina, president of the Mexican chamber, gave no details on the size of the anti-subsidy duties. (Reporting by Adriana Barrera; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Simon Gardner)

Mexican conglomerate Alfa He is interested in participating in association with the state oil company Pemex Exploration Projects in fields on earth, aunque también hacerlo the rule in shallow waters, dijo el viernes el director de Energía the company, Raul Millares. Pemex announced last week that he will seek partners in three mature onshore fields that together contain 2P reserves (proven and probable) for about 250 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe). The state said it will too for extra heavy oil fields in shallow waters Ayatsil-Tekel-Utsil in the southern Gulf of Mexico, with 2P reserves of 747 MMboe. "We have more preference or vocation to be more exploration in land…

A blaze Friday at the coking plant of the refinery of Mexico's state Pemex in the northern state of Tamaulipas killed one worker and left another 11 wounded, said the oil. Pemex said the coking plant Madero refinery was in maintenance and operations of the refinery, the smallest of the six Pemex and processes an average of 130,000 barrels per day (bpd) were not affected. The company did not elaborate on the status of injured workers. Pemex processes an average 1.24 million bpd in its six refineries. (Reporting by Adriana Barrera)

Mexican Lawmakers aim to set higher than first Planned Minimum requirements for Materials, How much local labor and companies investing in the Oil and Gas Industry must use, According to a Revised Draft of pending Legislation. Mexico 's Congress is in the Process of Approving so-called secondary laws to Implement the Government's December 2013 Energy reform, which the Forms of President Enrique Pena Nieto Cornerstone's Economic Growth Strategy to boost flagging. The laws, which Establish the Fine Print of the reform Ending the Oil and Gas Monopoly Granted to State Oil giant Pemex in 1938, are being Closely watched by Oil Majors Such as BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp..