LatinNews Daily - 04 May 2023

* Mexico’s state-run oil company Pemex has released new figures which show that it posted a net profit of M$56.7bn (US$3.1bn) in the first quarter of 2023. This compares with a net profit of M$122.5bn in the same period in 2022. The same figures show that total revenue in the first three months of 2023 totalled M$418.4bn, down from M$517.2bn in the same period in 2022 – a drop which stems from a fall of 8.3% in national sales and of 30.0% in export sales due to lower global prices of crude. The company’s total financial debt totalled M$1.94trn, down 7% on the amount registered at the end of last year. Production of crude oil averaged 1.85m barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter of 2023, up from 1.75m bpd in the same quarter in 2022, while output of refined oil products averaged 835,000 bpd, up from 822,000 bpd in 2022. According to Pemex, new oil fields contributed some 543,000 bpd in the first quarter. While at the start of this year, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that government would help Pemex pay off its debt obligations if necessary, deputy finance minister Gabriel Yorio told Bloomberg on 2 May that the government isn’t considering giving Pemex a capital injection this year.