Petroleos Mexicanos, Latin America’s largest oil producer, posted its biggest profit since 2008 in the second quarter as crude prices surged and Mexican oil traded with a premium over the U.S. crude benchmark. Second-quarter profit was 9.1 billion pesos ($775 million,) the Mexico City-based company said yesterday in a statement to the Mexican Stock Exchange. The previous year, Pemex, as the company is known, reported a net loss of 20.1 billion pesos, according to Bloomberg data. The state-owned oil company has benefited from the rising price of oil over the past year. The quarterly average price of Mexican export crude jumped 51 percent to $105.33 a barrel. U.S. oil futures traded in New York averaged $102.34 a barrel in the quarter, 31 percent higher than the $78.05 a year earlier. The Mexican mix of oil for export was an average of $5.67 a barrel higher than West Texas Intermediate in the period, the first quarter that oil exported by Pemex traded with a premium over the U.S. crude benchmark. Oil exports from Mexico, the second-largest oil supplier to the U.S. after Canada, rose 28 percent to 1.43 million barrels a day in June from the year-earlier period, Pemex said July 22. Pemex taxes represent about a third of Mexico’s public budget. Heavy, sour oil typically sells at a lower price because it is more expensive to refine into products such as gasoline and diesel fuel. Refineries that have invested in equipment to process these grades benefit when the discount for heavy crude widens. Sour refers to the oil’s sulfur content, while heavy refers to its density. Worldwide demand for crude gained about 3.2 percent from a year earlier in the three months that ended June 30. (The company plans to hold two conference calls today at 10 a.m New York time in Spanish and 11 a.m. in English. To listen to the 10 a.m. call dial +1 (617) 597 5379 and use code 5024203, to listen to the 11 a.m. call dial +1 (857) 350 1677 and use passcode 8802674.) To contact the reporter on this story: Carlos Manuel Rodriguez in Mexico City at carlosmr@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net.

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