In a sign that Mexico’s energy reform continues to attract foreign companies, Chevron and Glencore have announced separate plans for jumping into the Mexican retail fuel market, joining other big international majors in competing in Mexico’s newly-liberalized energy sector.
U.S. supermajor Chevron said on Thursday that it would open its first Chevron-branded station in Mexico in the coming weeks, and would work with local partners in the importation, distribution, and commercialization of refined products in Mexico.
“We look forward to growing our presence further in the country,” Brant Fish, Chevron’s vice president of Americas Products, said.
Chevron plans for more stations to open in the Sonora, Sinaloa, Baja California, and Baja California Sur states.
Commodity-trading giant Glencore, for its part, has just opened the first station in Mexico under the G500 franchise, the result of a joint venture that Glencore announced in May this year.
The commodity trader expects to begin imports of fuel for the Mexican market via its own terminal in Tabasco in February next year, Reuters quoted Alex Beard, head of Glencore Oil, as saying at the opening of the first G500 station.
Glencore and Chevron follow Exxon and BP on the growing list of international majors hoping to tap this retail market.
In May this year, ExxonMobil announced plans to enter the Mexican fuels market in 2017 by opening its first Mobil service station in central Mexico during the second half, and additional stations will open later this year.
ExxonMobil plans to invest about US$300 million in fuels logistics, product inventories, and marketing over the next 10 years.
In March, BP opened its first retail fuels site in Mexico as part of a plan to invest in the growing Mexican retail fuel and convenience market over the next five years.
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Apart from retail price liberalization, the energy reforms in Mexico also opened up the country’s offshore oil and gas riches to international investment, ending 70 years of state monopoly.
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Just last month, an alliance including foreign firms announced a “world class discovery”--estimated to hold more than 1 billion barrels of oil in place--in Mexico’s offshore area.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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