Pemex receives $30 million from Vitol to settle corruption case: Reuters

Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) received more $30 millionincluding $23 million in cash to end a dispute that stripped the world’s largest independent energy trader of the right to do business with the state oil company, documents and sources consulted with the matter familiar with the matter showed. Reuters.

Thanks to an agreement reached in April, Pemex lifted the nearly three-year ban it had imposed on Vitol after it became known at the end of 2020 about the firm’s agreement with US justice in the amount of $164 million to resolve investigations against it for bribes received by officials Mexican company and state-owned companies in Brazil and Ecuador.

Reuters reported that Pemex recently renewed business relations with Vitol: two ships carrying gasoline and the gasoline additive MTBE arrived at two Mexican ports.

Pemex negotiated a settlement with Vitol as deals were suspended, but no agreement was reached despite the marketer revealing the names of oil company officials involved in the bribes.

He President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Pemex would only resume business with Vitol if adequate compensation was paid and the company provided the names of those involved in the corruption scandal.

Neither the Mexican government nor Pemex responded to requests for comment. Vitol declined to comment.

This has not been previously reported Terms of agreement and two Pemex documents are not public.

Two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is commercially and politically sensitive, confirmed Reuters Terms of agreement.

A source familiar with negotiation According to him, after the agreement was signed, all divisions of the state-owned company needed several more weeks to complete the necessary processes.

In addition to the $23 million in cash that Pemex received as compensation for “inconvenience” due to the bribes Vitol admitted, the energy marketer withdrew its claim to a $9.25 million guarantee collected by Pemex’s industrial division, known as Pemex TRIin July 2021, according to documents.

The agreement also includes Vitol’s waiver of a $1.2 million claim by PMI Comercio Internacional, a subsidiary of Pemex, for alleged damage to its refinery in Cressier, Switzerland.

Vitol claimed damages due to “organic chlorides” in crude oil purchased in 2014, according to the documents.

In addition, Vitol agreed to transfer “free of charge” all goods and work performed in Ethylene refrigerated terminal and Pajaritos shipment (TREEP) in the state of Veracruz agreed in mid-2019 to amend an ethane supply contract signed a year earlier.

The documents do not specify the commercial value of the asset transfer or the additional work carried out by Vitol. Reuters I couldn’t find any records of this.

There is also no admission of guilt in the documents.

Pemex purchased eight batches of products from Vitol

Since the deal was struck, Pemex has bought at least eight shipments from Vitol, one of the people said, again making it one of the companies’ most important trading partners. gasoline import regular and premium.

Mexico is an attractive market for commodity traders, with its refineries struggling to process the heavy crude oil pumped by Pemex.

Although Mexico is an oil producer, it is dependent on imported gasoline and diesel. Pemex is the country’s only gasoline producer.

Six o’clock Pemex Refinery in Mexico they raised it a little crude oil refining in August, at 796,609 barrels per day (bpd) from the previous month, but they are still operating at half their capacity and are far from the government’s pledge to achieve fuel self-sufficiency by 2024.

Pemex imported 407,369 bpd of gasoline in August, the highest monthly volume this year and 17% more than in July, and 174,544 bpd of diesel, up 17% from July. .

State Oil Company filed a complaint against Vitol in Mexico in mid-December 2020 for possible corrupt practiceswhich expanded in January 2021.

However, in April of this year Mexican oil asked the Mexican justice system to refer these complaints to an “alternative dispute resolution mechanism,” which was signed on June 8, 2023, thereby closing the complaints against Vitol, according to the documents.

Reuters

Source: Aristegui Noticias

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