Mexico’s Olmeca refinery awarded 3rd place at the International Project Excellence Awards

The Olmeca refinery, Pemex’s precocious activated crude lipid processing works successful the confederate authorities of Tabasco, won 3rd spot successful the megaproject class astatine the 2025 International Project Excellence Award granted by the International Project Management Association (IPMA).

The award, presented connected Friday successful Berlin, Germany, places the Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos) task among the astir outstanding worldwide.

Former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador attended the August 2024 initiation of accumulation astatine his flagship vigor project, the Olmeca refinery, conscionable weeks earlier the extremity of his term. (Presidencia/Cuartoscuro)

The Olmeca refinery, besides known arsenic Las Bocas for its determination astatine the Port of Las Bocas successful the confederate Gulf Coast municipality of Paraíso, competed with much than 150 large-scale projects from astir the satellite and was recognized for its champion practices successful planning, technological innovation, and execution capacity.

The archetypal 2 places went to the French institution Alstom for the Wanda Zhonghe Shulin Line project, and the Chinese institution CNOOC for the Daxie Petrochemical Refining project.

Pemex said IPMA’s designation underscores the refinery’s value arsenic a strategical task for Mexico’s vigor sovereignty.

Some of the substance produced by the Olmeca refinery includes Pemex Magna gasoline, Pemex Premium gasoline, ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD), eco-friendly diesel (EDE), coke, sulfur, LP state and propylene.

According to Pemex, Olmeca is the lone refinery successful Mexico that produces eco-friendly diesel, supplying the Yucatán Peninsula and strategical projects similar the Maya Train.

However, since going online successful August 2024, Olmeca has yet to scope its processing capableness of 340,000 barrels per time crossed 17 state-of-the-art processing plants. According to Pemex, the refinery processed 156,200 barrels of crude lipid per time during July, down 18.4% compared to the erstwhile month.

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Production is expected to gradually summation to 158,000 barrels of gasoline per time and 122,000 barrels of diesel per day, strengthening the country’s substance market.

Olmeca was 1 of erstwhile President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s flagship projects, officially inaugurated connected July 1, 2022. The much than two-year hold successful starting operations has been blamed connected method problems, mediocre show and biology roadblocks.

The task was arguable from the start, and seen by galore arsenic a awesome of López Obrador’s reluctance to clasp cleanable and renewable vigor sources. But Olmeca came successful for its heaviest disapproval erstwhile immense overruns much than doubled its outgo to US $20 cardinal from the budgeted US $8 billion. According to the Mexican Institute of Chemical Engineers (IMIQ), that fig makes it 1 of the astir costly refineries successful the world.

With reports from El Financiero, La Jornada, El País and Energy and Commerce