Mexico's Pemex processed only about 1 million barrels a day at its refineries in the second quarter of 2026, just 58% of installed capacity, and fuel imports rose again as a result. The reversal lands just as US diesel cracks have climbed to $85 a barrel, making the country's renewed reliance on imported fuel more expensive. Recurring outages at newer plants, above all the more than $20-billion Dos Bocas refinery, are undercutting a self-sufficiency drive Pemex has poured billions into while carrying $77.5 billion in financial debt.
Runs slip after an early-2026 recovery
Pemex's refining recovery is losing momentum. Crude processing climbed from just 785,000 barrels a day in late 2024 to around 1.2 million barrels a day between December and March 2026, helped by the ramp-up of Dos Bocas and Tula's new coker. Clean-product imports fell in step, dropping from around 750,000 barrels a day in 2024 to roughly 520,000 barrels a day in the first five months of 2026.
But the trend reversed in April. Processing fell back to about 1.01 million barrels a day by June, while product imports moved the other way, rising to around 620,000 barrels a day in May and 700,000 barrels a day in June. Even at its recent peak, the system used only about two-thirds of its roughly 1.75 million barrels a day of installed crude oil processing capacity; by the second quarter, utilization had slipped to around 58%.
Imports get costlier just as they climb
The timing compounds the problem. In June, Mexico imported around 155,000 barrels a day of diesel and 340,000 barrels a day of gasoline from the United States, with diesel and gasoline cracks averaging $54 and $44 a barrel respectively. By mid-August, US diesel cracks had risen to $85 a barrel, adding to the cost of every barrel Mexico now has to buy abroad.
Dos Bocas illustrates the gap between paper capacity and reliable output. The refinery has reportedly reached its full 340,000-barrel-a-day nameplate capacity on individual days in 2026, yet averaged just 144,000 barrels a day in the second quarter, about 42% utilization. An electrical failure in January 2026 knocked out its coker, catalytic and hydrodesulfurization units and reportedly deferred around 150,000 barrels of crude processing. Salina Cruz has faced repeated fires, and Tula, Minatitlán and Salamanca have each had isolated disruptions.
A costly bet on reliability
That inconsistency erodes the economics behind keeping more crude at home. Crude exports averaged around 550,000 barrels a day from March through May 2026, down from roughly 780,000 barrels a day a year earlier, even as Mexico still had to lift fuel imports. Pemex carried $77.5 billion in financial debt at the end of June 2026, and the federal government contributed around $20.6 billion of capital during 2025 to help bring debt down. Pemex has shown it can improve its product slate and occasionally push throughput higher. What it has not shown is that its refineries can sustain those gains.
Source: Oilprice.com
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