Cadereyta Refinery Invests to Reduce Harmful Emissions

State owned oil company PEMEX is set to invest US$82 million in its Cadereyta refinery, one of the NOC’s six Mexican refining installations located in the state of Nuevo Leon. The investment aims to renovate boilers and foster processes that will create less-polluting emissions and adheres to a new green tax plan proposed by the state’s governor.

Nuevo Leon’s Governor, Samuel García, said that PEMEX’s investments come from talks with the state government aiming to address environmental issues surrounding the refinery, located on the outskirts of the state’s capital Monterrey.

“We ask the PEMEX refinery to contribute… They promised us they will reduce emissions by 90 or 95 percent. It is a great achievement for Nuevo Leon that the refinery says it will commit and will stop polluting,” Garcia said during a press talk after he announced his state will carry out a green tax program to clean up the environment, which requires Nuevo Leon’s industry to curb harmful emissions. Since September 2019, Cadereyta processed an average of 126Mbpd, according to data from SENER, activity that analysts say creates significant emissions through processes like gas flaring.

“We are amidst a climate crisis; we cannot wait for 2030 or 2050. Nuevo Leon is committed to green taxes. We will create a series of quotas for those who emit pollutants above the legal limit, we have this issue monitored,” added García in regards to the state’s plans. “Taxpayers that break the law, pollute more than what is allowed and are given fiscal stimuli that they do not use for any investments, from today on I tell them that they will pay and will pay dearly, because with [the green tax] we will fix the damage they have done to Nuevo Leon. We will invest it in mobility, the environment and reforestation,” added the governor.

On Friday, Nov. 12, a fire broke out at Cadereyta, which was subsequently put out without any injuries to staff or a slow-down of production levels. Nevertheless, the refinery’s current output is significantly lower than its capacity of 275Mbdp. “The refining system in Mexico has two structural problems, which everybody is aware of. One is the lack of deep conversion capabilities, which means that you need deeper conversion processing power to destroy all of the fuel oil and produce larger amounts of gasoline and diesel. The other is that the production of light sweet crude has declined, particularly the Olmeca mix. The country’s refining system needs this input but Mexico has not been able to offset the decrease,” explained Jaime Brito, Vice President, Stratas Advisors to MBN earlier this year.