Pemex scrambles to plug the gap

The NOC’s dire financial situation and maturing fields have left the authorities with little choice but to reduce crude expectations

Mexico’s government has been forced to accept reality and downgrade the country’s crude forecast for the year. The retreat always looked likely, with state oil and gas firm Pemex struggling to service its debts and some of Mexico’s largest oilfields posting substantial declines. Production last year showed the largest annual drop for four decades. Output from Maloob, Zaap and Quesqui alone slumped by 121,000b/d year-on-year as total domestic supply fell to just 1.6m b/d across all of 2024. The number of producing wells also sunk by almost 4%. “The downward revision in crude production is driven by a mix of financial and operational challenges at Pemex, along with the ongoing decline of matur