Pemex goes it alone with new refinery

Mexico has scrapped plans for outside firms to build the 340,000 b/d Dos Bocas refinery, charging the energy ministry and state-owned Pemex with building and managing the project instead. None of the four engineering consortiums bidding on the project could meet its $8bn budget and three-year construction period requirements, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says. Energy minister Rocio Nahle says project work will start on 2 June, for completion by May 2021. The government will invest 50bn pesos ($2.5bn) in the refinery this year. The new refinery was a campaign issue for Lopez Obrador, who wants to reduce Mexico's dependence on imported products. But analysts warn that contractors' inability to comply with Mexico's requirements confirm that they are impossible to meet. The refinery decision comes as credit ratings agency Moody's warns that Mexico's growing financial support for Pemex will put further pressure on the national economy, which shrank by 0.2pc in the first quarter.