Mexico City — Mexico’s state-owned oil company Pemex will refinance its revolving credit lines with banks to complete the capital injection that the government assigned to the oil company in this year’s expenditure budget so that it can cover debt maturities in 2024.
The refinancing plans consider $3 billion of revolving credit lines to meet debt maturities in the last year of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s six-year term, a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified told Bloomberg Línea.
The refinancing operation will be in addition to the 145-billion-peso contribution from the federal government (around $8.2 billion) included in the 2024 budget, which has yet to be approved by the Chamber of Deputies. This would cover the total maturities of $11.2 billion.
The federal government’s goal is for Pemex to reduce its debt by the same amount as the budgetary contribution after paying the amortizations.
Bloomberg Línea reported on August 1 that Pemex would follow a refinancing strategy with banks and capitalization from the Treasury (SHCP) to meet the debt maturities it will face in 2024.
The refinancing formula with the banks, plus the capitalization from the government, follows the capital injection of almost $4 billion of July 28 in order to cover Pemex’s 2023 maturities.
The Mexican government’s capital injections to Pemex are conditional on the company cutting its spending in both 2023 and 2024.
The draft budget proposes a 273.2% increase in spending by the Energy Ministry to make equity contributions to Pemex and CFE, according to the Center for Economic and Budgetary Research (CIEP).
Pemex, headed by Octavio Romero Oropeza, will have a budget of 456.02 billion pesos ($26.4 billion) in the last year of López Obrador’s administration, which represents a 35.9% real decrease with respect to what was approved for 2023.
Government support for Pemex is positive, Fitch Ratings says
Fitch Ratings said in a note on September 11 that the Mexican government’s financial support to Pemex (B+) included in its 2024 budget, as well as the reduction of its tax burden, was “directionally positive”.
However, the ratings agency mentioned that the funding does not fully cover capital needs in the short term.
Pemex is the most indebted oil company in the world with financial liabilities of $110.5 billion.
“The federal government has responded positively since Fitch downgraded Pemex’s note and placed it on a negative outlook (RWN) on July 14, 2023, being more explicit in its support for the company,” the agency said in a document.
The rating firm added that the magnitude of the commitments announced fall short of the total amount needed to give Pemex a sustainable capital structure.
The López Obrador government and Pemex have criticized Fitch and Moody’s evaluations. Pemex even terminated the rating service with Fitch and Energy Minister and chair of Pemex’s Board, Rocio Nahle, told Bloomberg Línea that she will analyze the contract with Moody’s.