Emilio Lozoya resigned as Petroleos Mexicanos’ chief executive officer after the oil giant failed to reverse falling output and reported 12 straight quarterly losses.
Lozoya, 41, who took over as CEO of the state-owned producer in late 2012, will be replaced by Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya, President Enrique Pena Nieto said in Mexico City on Monday. Gonzalez, a Harvard-trained economist who was deputy finance minister and now heads Mexico’s Social Security Institute, will assume Lozoya’s role.
Pena Nieto said Gonzalez faces two challenges: “To accelerate the transformation of Pemex to take maximum advantage of the opportunities offered” by the opening of the country’s oil industry to investments, as well as to “achieve financial and productive strengthening at a time of low oil prices.”
Gonzalez will take the helm at Pemex in the wake of the company’s worst quarterly result in history — a $10.2 billion loss. Combined with the international drop in oil prices, the country’s largest company has seen crude production fall 11 straight years amid a series of budget cuts and staff reductions.