Mexican state energy company Pemex reported on Friday that its financial debt had fallen to $101.5 billion at the end of the first quarter after what Chief Executive Officer Octavio Romero called "unprecedented support" from the government.
Throughout his term in office, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an energy nationalist, has thrown the heavily indebted driller billions of dollars in lifelines, including capital injections and tax reductions.
Even so, Pemex remains the world's most indebted energy company and owes both national and international service providers $21.9 billion more.
"It is important that future governments support Pemex the way it requires," Romero told analysts after the results were published on Friday.
In the first quarter alone, Pemex received $4.6 billion in support from the government.
Pemex is still the largest contributor to state coffers even though production has fallen from the heights of decades earlier as fields are being depleted and newer discoveries have failed to compensate for the decline.
During the January-to-March period, Pemex produced crude oil and condensate at an average of 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd), the results showed, and processed an average of 985,000 bpd in its six national refineries.
While production had fallen from the same quarter a year earlier, processing had increased.
It reported a net profit of 4.7 billion pesos ($284.3 million), down 91.7% from the year earlier period, amid lower sales and higher costs, and an EBITA of 92.4 billion.
Its revenues stood at 405.9 billion pesos, down 3% from the year before, driven mainly by a drop in crude prices.
