Mexico’s Oil Giant Pemex Posts Rare Profit for Q2

Petroleos Mexicanos, Mexico’s state oil giant and the world’s most indebted energy firm, reported on Tuesday its first quarterly profit in a year, thanks to the rising Mexican currency. Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex as it is known, booked a net profit of $3.16 billion (59.52 billion Mexican pesos) for the second quarter of 2025, for the first quarterly profit in over a year. The losses for 2024 amounted to about $30 billion, with the fourth-quarter loss alone at just over $9 billion. Crude and condensate production continued its downward spiral in 2024, slipping to 1.65 million barrels per day (bpd). That was down by nearly 10% from the same period of 2023, further tightening the financial chokehold on Pemex, the world’s most indebted energy company with about $100 billion in debts. However, the second quarter of this year saw a rare positive result—mostly due to currency effects as the peso rose against the U.S. dollar. Despite the fact that the profit came mostly thanks to a favorable currency exchange effect, the quarterly earnings give Pemex more time to breathe as revenues dropped in Q2 because of lower sales and lower commodity prices. The profit comes as the Mexican government is seeking to prop up the company, again.Last week, Mexico’s Finance Ministry announced it would launch a new financial operation to support Pemex with a new debt issue. The operation involves issuing “Pre-Capitalized Notes,” a form of financing designed to strengthen Pemex’s balance sheet without a direct government guarantee. The plan is part of an ongoing effort to prop up a company mired in debt, production decline, and operational dysfunction. Following the announcement, Fitch Ratings placed Pemex on rating watch positive, saying that the “transaction is credit positive and demonstrates the federal government's willingness and ability to provide substantial support to PEMEX.” However, the company’s financial profile and earnings outlook remain persistently weak, due to negative funds from operations, declining profit margins on the back of lower production and oil prices, and “unrelenting losses in the downstream business,” Fitch said. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com