Mexico's Pemex posts wider 2Q loss on lower crude output

Mexican state-run oil company Pemex reported a bigger second-quarter loss on Tuesday, weighed down by a nearly 10 percent slide in crude output.

Losses for the quarter widened nearly 62 percent to 84.572 billion pesos (US$5.388 billion) from 52.226 billion pesos a year earlier, Pemex said in a statement.

The company also cited a 44 percent drop in the average price of Mexican crude exports during the quarter. Revenue fell 24.5 percent to 308.9 billion pesos from 409 billion pesos. Last year, Mexico's Congress completed a sweeping energy overhaul that ended Pemex's decades-long monopoly on oil production.

The overhaul promises to reverse declining crude output by luring billions of dollars in private investment via new contracts. Pemex did not compete in the first phase of the so-called Round One tender earlier this month, the first opportunity under the overhaul in which oil companies could bid on contracts covering 14 offshore blocks.

But the company has said it plans to participate in future phases of the five-stage Round One auction, which consists of 169 blocks. Pemex is also set to sign its first joint venture deals with private oil companies, another first permitted under the industry overhaul.