Mexico's push for fuel self-sufficiency has run into a stubborn problem: Pemex has built and upgraded refining capacity faster than it has learned to operate it reliably. The state oil company is being asked to send more crude into domestic refineries and less onto the export market, a strategy that looks increasingly sensible when refined products' cracks are strong. But the second quarter of 2026 showed the weakness of that model.
Mexican refineries processed only around 1 million b/d (58% of installed capacity), while fuel imports climbed sharply again. Mexico has spent heavily to reduce its dependence on foreign gasoline and diesel, yet the effectiveness of that strategy still hinges on a refining system that repeatedly fails to sustain high runs. Until early 2026, the numbers suggested the strategy had been working.
Clean-product imports, which averaged around 750,000 b/d in 2024, fell to roughly 520,000 b/d during the first five months of 2026 as refinery throughput recovered. Runs climbed from just 785,000 b/d in late 2024 to around 1.2 million b/d between December and March 2026, helped by the ramp-up of Dos Bocas and Tula's new coker. Then the recovery began to unravel.
Crude processing started falling in April and was back near 1.01 million b/d by June. Product imports moved in the opposite direction, rising to around 620,000 b/d in May and 700,000 b/d in June. The reversal exposed the central weakness in Mexico's self-sufficiency drive: the country can reduce fuel imports when Pemex's refineries run harder, but it has yet to show that they can do so consistently.
Even at the recent peak of around 1.2 million b/d, the Mexican refining system was using only about two-thirds of its roughly 1.75 million b/d of installed capacity (excluding the Deer Park refinery in Texas). By Q2 2026, utilization had fallen back to around 58%. That is a low return on a system into which Mexico has poured billions of dollars through refinery rehabilitation, new conversion units and the construction of Dos Bocas.
Related: 5 LNG Megaprojects Poised to Power the Next Gas Boom Moreover, Pemex's renewed reliance on fuel imports comes at a particularly painful moment. Buying gasoline and diesel from the US Gulf Coast while crack spreads for both products are near record highs adds another layer of pressure to the company's finances. In June, Mexico imported around 155,000 b/d of diesel and 340,000 b/d of gasoline from the United States, just as diesel and gasoline cracks averaged at $54/bbl and $44/bbl, respectively.
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