Deer Park Refinery Ran at 77 Percent Capacity in 2025, Pemex Left 80,000 Barrels a Day on the Table

Pemex's Deer Park refinery processed 261,000 barrels per day in 2025, according to the company's annual SEC filing, 79,000 barrels below its nameplate capacity of 340,000. The 77 percent utilization rate makes Deer Park Pemex's most efficient refinery by a wide margin, but it also means the crown jewel of the company's downstream portfolio is leaving more than $1 billion in potential revenue on the table.

The numbers are worth parsing. Deer Park processed 272,000 barrels per day in 2024, the highest level since Pemex bought Shell's 50 percent stake for $596 million in 2022. The 2025 figure slipped to 261,000, a 4 percent decline. Pemex attributes the drop to maintenance cycles and operational disruptions, but the pattern suggests the refinery's performance is plateauing well below its potential. At 77 percent utilization, Deer Park is running at roughly the same efficiency as the average independent US refinery, and better than any of Pemex's six Mexican refineries, which average around 50 percent combined utilization.

The acquisition was framed by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as a strategic victory for Mexican energy independence. Mexico imports roughly 60 percent of its gasoline and diesel, and Deer Park was supposed to reduce that dependence by supplying refined products to the domestic market. But the math has not fully worked out. Deer Park is designed to process heavy crude grades from the Gulf of Mexico, and shifting it to process the lighter crudes that Mexico's domestic refineries handle would require costly reconfiguration.

The age of the facility is a factor. Deer Park was built in 1929 and has operated for 97 years. Keeping a refinery from the Coolidge administration running at optimal output requires constant capital investment in turnaround maintenance and equipment upgrades. Pemex has committed capital to Deer Park improvements, including upgrades to the coker unit, but the returns on that investment depend on pushing utilization rates closer to the nameplate. The 2025 data suggests Pemex has not yet found a formula to achieve that consistently.

The downstream challenge for Pemex is structural. Mexico's six domestic refineries have a combined nameplate capacity of roughly 1.6 million barrels per day, but actual production averaged just 800,000 barrels daily in 2025. The gap between capacity and output is filled by imported refined products, mostly from US Gulf Coast refineries including some that compete directly with Deer Park. Pemex spent approximately $25 billion on fuel imports in 2025, according to company financial data.

Deer Park is Pemex's best-performing refinery by every metric. If the company cannot maximize production at its most efficient facility, the prospects for its Mexican refineries, which face far more serious operational and infrastructure challenges, look even more concerning. The 77 percent utilization figure is better than Pemex's domestic average. It is still 23 percentage points away from full capacity. The gap represents roughly 80,000 barrels of daily production that Pemex paid $596 million to control and still cannot fully use.

The question for investors and analysts is whether Deer Park can hit 90 percent utilization in the next 12 to 18 months. Pemex says it is working on it. The SEC filing data suggests there is still a long way to go.

The Deer Park performance data matters beyond Pemex. It is a measure of whether Mexico's bet on downstream self-sufficiency is paying off. If Deer Park cannot consistently run near capacity, the argument for investing billions in Pemex's domestic refineries rather than importing refined products gets harder to make. The Dos Bocas refinery in Tabasco, a flagship project of the Lopez Obrador administration that cost an estimated $18 billion, has not yet reached commercial production. Deer Park, a 97-year-old refinery Pemex bought for $596 million, produces more refined product than Dos Bocas has managed in its entire existence. The comparison is not favorable to the government's refinery strategy.

Pemex's total refining system processed an average of 1.06 million barrels per day in 2025 against combined nameplate capacity of 1.94 million, yielding a system-wide utilization rate of 54.6 percent. That means nearly half of the refining capacity Mexico owns sits idle. Deer Park's 77 percent utilization is the best in the system. It is also the only refinery Pemex operates outside of Mexico. The refinery Pemex acquired for strategic self-sufficiency is located in Texas, not Mexico.