Mexico City — Slumping revenues pushed Mexico’s Petroleos Mexicanos to a net loss of 87.4 bln pesos ($4.43 billion) in the third quarter, but the struggling state oil firm said on Monday it had managed to cut back its hefty debt load.
Pemex, as the company is generally known, had financial debts of $106 billion at the end of 2018, and it has been under intense pressure from international credit rating agencies to get its finances onto a sustainable path.
In a filing to the stock exchange reporting its latest operating results, the company said since the start of the year it had reduced financial debt by 6.1% to $99.6 billion.
The figures showed revenues at Pemex fell by 20.2% to 350.5 billion pesos compared with the third quarter of last year.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has pledged to revive the state oil company, which has been struggling to cope with its crushing debts and years of declining oil production.
Fitch in June became the first major credit rating agency to downgrade Pemex’s bonds to so-called junk status. If Moody’s or S&P follows suit with a junk designation, it would trigger forced-selling of Pemex bonds worth billions of dollars.
Rating agencies say fresh downgrades would have a knock-on effect on Mexico’s sovereign creditworthiness.
Pemex reported a net profit of 26.8 billion pesos during the third quarter of 2018. ($1 = 19.7205 pesos at end of September).
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