(Adds details, context and quote from Mexico's President)
MEXICO CITY, May 26 (Reuters) - Mexico should recover its
investment to buy the controlling stake of the Deer Park
refinery in Texas during the next two to three years, President
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday.
Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos this
week announced the purchase of a 50.1%-stake in the
340,000-barrel-per-day refinery from its partner Royal Dutch
Shell for some $596 million.
About $106 million of the transaction cost will go towards
paying down a January loan to Shell's unit Shell Oil Company,
and up to $490 million towards paying down the joint venture's
debt, Pemex Chief Executive Officer Octavio Romero said in a
presentation at a news conference with the president.
Mexico's government plans to provide cash from its savings
to fund the purchase.
Barclays helped to structure the deal, for which
negotiations started in August, the president said.
In a report following the announcement, investment firm
Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co estimated the value of oil
inventories, which were not included in the $596 million
transaction cost, at between $250 million and $350 million at
market prices.
Deer Park, which last year worked at 78.5% of its capacity,
reported a loss for 2020 as lower fuel demand hit most U.S.
refineries' profits, Romero said.
Romero hailed the transaction that will end a 28-year-long
partnership as an important step toward Mexico's energy
self-sufficiency, so that it can stop importing gasoline by
2023.
Lopez Obrador, who has moved to strengthen state control
over energy since taking office in 2018, said Mexico would not
have to take on new debt to pay for the first ever refinery that
Pemex will solely own and operate overseas.
"We were missing 200,000 bpd to reach self-sufficiency. Our
options were restarting a refining train at Cangrejera
(petrochemical complex) or buying Deer Park," Lopez Obrador
said. "There are no losses."
(Reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher, Marianna Parraga and Ana
Isabel Martinez
Editing by Dave Graham and Bernadette Baum)
