Mexico’s Crown-Jewel Oil Refinery Is $3.6 Billion Over Budget
- Dos Bocas refinery costs have risen by 40% in past 15 months
- Project is now projected to cost about $12.5 billion
Mexico’s mega-refinery project Dos Bocas is expected to cost 40% more than previously estimated and is unlikely to be completed by the government’s 2022 deadline, casting serious doubts on whether the country can soon fulfill its goal to produce all of its own gasoline.
The facility, located in the southeastern state of Tabasco, is crucial to Pemex’s plans to halt crude oil exports in 2023 as part of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s nationalist goal of self-sufficiency in fuel consumption. The speed bumps for the project come as critics were already questioning Petroleos Mexicanos’s ability to refine all of its own crude given declining production, its lack of maintenance of its refineries and its heavy debt burden, which is the highest of any oil company.