MEXICO CITY, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Mexico is in the process of receiving bids on a refinery complex in the southern state of Tabasco to meet the country's increasing demand for petroleum products, Energy Minister Rocio Nahle said on Monday.
The refinery is expected to have a capacity of processing some 340,000 barrels of crude per day and its 17 plants "are going to produce gasoline, diesel, propylene, liquid gas, coke and sulfur," Nahle said at a press conference.
The government plans to build the refinery complex via restricted bidding, which means the invitation is going to selected companies, such as ICA Fluor Daniel, Samsung Engineering and Kellog Brown & Root, she said, adding that the 8-billion-U.S.-dollar refinery is expected to counter the 70-percent increase in oil product import in recent years.
Mexico's energy "infrastructure and refining ... has remained the same, without any growth, for nearly three decades despite domestic demand for oil products increasing at 2.9 percent a year," Nahle said.
The refinery on the Gulf of Mexico is one of the key infrastructure projects of the current Mexican administration, which hopes to strengthen the country's energy self-sufficiency.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the refinery aims to wean the country off oil product imports and give "added value to our raw material: crude."
"In addition to asserting our sovereignty," the move will lead Mexico "to stop depending on foreigners for such a sensitive matter as the supply of gasoline," he said.
