Pemex Output Falls 14% on Cantarell, Hurricane Ike

(Bloomberg) — Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, said monthly crude output fell to the lowest since November 1995 on decreased demand from U.S. refiners and as its largest field declined.

Production fell to 2.722 million barrels a day in September, a decline of 14 percent from a year ago, Mexico City- based Pemex, as the company is known, said today on its Web site. Pemex extracted 2.555 million barrels a day in November 1995.


Pemex shut wells that produced about 250,000 barrels of oil a day on Sept. 23 after U.S. refiners struggled to restart because of Hurricane Ike. The company resumed full output on Oct. 9. Output at Cantarell, the third-largest field in the world, fell 36 percent to 940,020 barrels a day, the third consecutive month below 1 million barrels.

Declining output is costing more than 275 billion pesos ($21.2 billion) in sales this year and threatening Mexico’s budget, as 40 percent of the government’s revenue comes from Pemex royalties.

Bloomberg