Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group said it attacked two plants at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry last Saturday, knocking out more than half the Kingdom’s output, in a move expected to send oil prices soaring and increase tensions in the Middle East.
Mexico’s government will uphold its pledge to keep fuel prices stable and has gasoline supplies secured despite attacks on Saudi oil sites, P resident Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Tuesday.
López Obrador told a regular news conference that officials from the finance ministry and state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) would meet on Tuesday.
The president said oil-producing Mexico benefited from higher oil prices but was also exposed to market fluctuations because it imported gasoline and diesel .
“We need to see how this equilibrium is,” López Obrador told reporters.
“We have gasoline supplies secured without any problem, due to imports, and because the refining capacity of Pemex’s plants has increased.”
On Wednesday, Mexico’s Energy Minister Rocío Nahle said the government does not need to modify the oil price forecast in its 2020 budget proposal following recent attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities.
“This is temporary, not permanent,” Nahle told reporters, when asked about Mexico’s response to strikes on the world’s biggest crude processing facility that initially knocked out half of Saudi production.
The attack heightened uncertainty in a market that had become relatively subdued in recent months and now faces the loss of crude from Saudi Arabia, traditionally the world’s supplier of last resort .
The attacks and subsequent hit to supply are likely to keep prices elevated for some time.
Major importers of Saudi crude, such as India, China, Japan, and South Korea , will be the most vulnerable to any supply disruption.
mp