Petroleos Mexicanos’s plans last year included joint ventures and higher oil production. For 2016, that’s turned into job cuts and asset sales as it tries to weather the worst downturn in a generation.
In Jan. 2014, Chief Executive Officer Emilio Lozoya was optimistic about 2015. He expected the company’s first joint ventures would reverse nine straight years of declining output. Revenue from oil would rise, he said. This rosy outlook never materialized. Pemex is ending 2015 with total debt that’s set to surpass $100 billion and has accumulated $22.4 billion in quarterly losses this year. Instead of participating in joint ventures, the oil producer might instead sell off pieces.
“Pemex could consider the sale of any of its assets,” Nymia Almeida, senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service, said in a telephone interview from Mexico City. “The only thing that Pemex can’t sell are the oil reserves. Everything else is a possibility.”
Pemex has already divested its $1.3 billion stake in a natural gas pipeline and storage operator. It may also look for new operators for its six refineries and announced it will return some oil fields assigned to it by the government. Currently, it has no joint ventures to produce oil.
Brazil Energy Insight 
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