Mexican state oil company Pemex's refining margin fell to negative US$1.90/b in the third quarter of 2008 compared to a US$4.50/b positive margin in 3Q07, company CFO Esteban Levín said in a webcast.
By comparison, the company registered a negative refining margin of negative US$1.07/b in 2Q08.
The decrease was due to the higher crude prices, particularly in July. "The negative margin is consistent with the decrease in international margins," Levín said.
The refining margin is equal to total revenues minus the costs of raw materials, consumption - fuel oil and natural gas used to operate refineries - and auxiliary services such as electric power, water and catalysts.
Pemex processed 1.25Mb/d in the quarter, up 2.7%.
The total is comprised of an 11.8% increase in the processing of heavy crude up to 486,000b/d, members of Pemex's investor relations department told BNamericas, clarifying an error in the webcast.
The increase was due to a decline last year when Pemex was forced to repair pipelines following alleged attacks by insurgent group EPR.
The company also saw a 2.7% drop in the refining of light crude to 764,000b/d due to the operating program aimed at increasing utilization of coker unit deep conversion equipment.
As a result, the company's primary distillation capacity increased to 81.9% from 79.7% in the quarter, Levín said.
As of September 30, the number of Pemex service stations reached 8,222, up 5.4% from the same date in 2007.
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