Pemex notches third straight quarterly profit

Mexican state oil company Pemex registered a profit of $1.8 billion in the second quarter, it said Thursday, the struggling firm's third straight quarter in the black.

It said higher oil prices and a recovering peso had given it a boost.

Sales came in at 322.5 billion pesos ($17.9 billion), an increase of more than 25 percent from the same period last year.

Pemex, Mexico's largest company, supplies some 16 percent of the government's revenue.

But it has struggled with declining production and financial trouble in recent years.

President Enrique Pena Nieto enacted a landmark energy reform in 2014 that reopened Mexico's oil and gas sector to foreign investors after 76 years of state monopoly, seeking to breathe new life into the sector.

As a result, Pemex now faces stiff competition from private firms.

In 2016 it implemented a $5.5-billion cost-cutting plan and received a $4.2-billion cash injection from the government to get its books in order.

But it still finished the year $14.3 billion in the red.

This year is off to a better start.

On Monday Pemex said it had covered its financing needs through 2018 after raising $5 billion in an international bond placement.