(Oil Price) – Mexico has temporarily suspended imports of fuels from the United States by truck as it is stepping up inspections of permits in a bid to clamp down on illegal fuel trades, sources with knowledge of the matter have told Reuters.
As Mexico is stepping up cargo inspections, trucks loaded with diesel and gasoline are currently not being allowed to cross the Texas border into Mexico, according to one of Reuters’ sources involved in the delivery of fuels by truck.
Mexican authorities have not yet given a timeline on when fuel trade by road would resume, the sources told Reuters.
Only fuel trade by road is affected, and there aren’t any problems with railway or seaborne fuel deliveries from the United States to Mexico, per the anonymous sources.
The lucrative illegal fuel trade between the U.S. Gulf refining hub and Mexico has prompted Mexican authorities to issue a decree in 2023 establishing measures to combat the illicit fuel market.
Because of its ageing refining capacity and systems, Mexico depends on U.S. fuel imports despite being a major crude oil producer. Mexico is the largest export market for U.S. petroleum products, and petroleum products accounted for 87% of the total energy exports from the United States to Mexico in 2023, according to EIA data.
U.S. petroleum product exports to Mexico averaged 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2023, up by 1% from the previous year.
However, illegal fuel trade is depriving both the U.S. and Mexico of the revenues and taxes of the legal trade, and Mexican authorities appear determined to crack down on cross-border fuel smuggling.
Last month, the Mexican government said it had seized 10 million liters of diesel stored on “the land of a freight company” in the city of Altamira, in the northeast of the country. The seizure of the fuel at the end of March was followed by the confiscation of another eight million liters of diesel in Ensenada, Baja California, the week prior.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
