Residual fuel oil production decreased by 8pc to 210,497 b/d in 2017 at Mexican state-owned Pemex, compared with 228,042 b/d in 2016. The drop reflected outages at the 330,000 b/d refinery Salina Cruz, which was intermittently shutdown during the second half of 2017 due to damage caused by an earthquake and a fire.
Aggregate resid production was down despite a jump in fuel oil output from the 246,000 b/d Minatitlan and 320,000 b/d Madero refineries due to unplanned catalytic reformers shut downs. Resid production from Minatitlan in 2017 was up by 70pc to 24,853 b/d and was up from Madero by 35pc to 14,972 b/d in 2017.
The pace of operations at Salina Cruz has begun to recover. In January 2018, the refinery processed 164,531 b/d of crude, compared with 136,990 b/d in 2017 and with 238,685 b/d in 2016. Salina Cruz produced 92,844 b/d of resid in January, the highest output since April 2017.
As a result of the residual fuel oil production drop in Salina Cruz, which is located on Mexico's Pacific coast, Mexican resid exports to California on the US west coast dropped by 65pc to 11,047 b/d in 2017, compared with 31,137 b/d in 2016. By contrast, resid exports from Mexico to Texas increased by 123pc to 38,762 b/d in 2017, compared with 17,372 b/d. The jump in exports to the US Gulf coast state followed an increase in fuel oil output from the Minantitlan and Madero refineries, both located on Mexico's Gulf coast.
