On August 23, 2023, the state-owned oil company Petróleos Mexicanos requested the cancellation of the application for a loan to the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), through the project with reference number AP089444XX for the amount of $800 million dollars, the requested loan is known to be destined to the development of an oil and gas field project on the east coast of Mexico. The EXIM is an official credit agency to promote U.S. private sector export and investment abroad, and had previously completed the credit approval process for the national oil company.
What is relevant is that this cancellation is related to the recent donations made by the Mexican state-owned company in June and July for more than one million barrels of crude oil to the Cuban country, due to the fact that Cuba is currently subject to a trade embargo by the United States, operations that the Mexican government concealed, presumably to avoid being sanctioned.
A month after the suspension of the credit, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Bárcena Ibarra, tried to manage the situation by sending a conciliatory message to Washington. She stated that Pemex was evaluating ways to charge Cuba for the oil donated as humanitarian aid, but stressed that any such measure should avoid violating U.S. sanctions. This, according to data obtained by the Staff of Oil & Gas Magazine.
In the details of the financial sanction clause that the EXIM imposed on Pemex, it is explained that, although it is directed at the state-owned company, its scope does not affect the Mexican government, and therefore the financial institution will continue to support U.S. investors in their operations in Mexico, except in the oil sector. With this, Mexico enters the black list of Single States called Country Limitation Schedule or CSL (Country Limitation Program), which also includes countries such as Bolivia, Haiti, Venezuela, among others.
This fact will undoubtedly affect Petróleos Mexicanos in some way and will place it in an even more complicated financial situation, which will undoubtedly require an even more specialized strategy to optimize the resources it now has.
