Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will seek to end the country’s massive fuel imports, nearly all from the United States, during the first three years of his term while also boosting refining at home.
The landslide winner of last Sunday’s election told reporters on Saturday morning before attending private meetings with members of his future cabinet that he will also prioritise growing crude oil production domestically, which has fallen sharply for years.
“The objective is that we stop buying foreign gasoline by the half way point of my six-year term,” said Lopez Obrador, repeating a position he and his senior energy advisor staked out during the campaign, according to Reuters.
“We are going to immediately revive our oil activity, exploration and the drilling of wells so we have crude oil,” he said.
On the campaign trail, the leftist former mayor of Mexico City pitched his plan to wean the country off foreign gasoline as a means to increasing domestic production of crude and value-added fuels, not as a trade issue with the United States.
Lopez Obrador also reiterated on Saturday his goal to build either one large or two medium-sized oil refineries during his term, which begins on December 1.
While he said the facilities will be built in the Gulf coast states of Tabasco and possibly Campeche, he has been less clear on how the multi-billion-dollar refineries would be funded.
So far this year, Mexico has imported an average of about 590,000 barrels per day (bpd) of gasoline and another 232,000 bpd of diesel, as output at the country’s domestic refineries has steadily declined.
