“Refinery project to start Sunday but permits still lacking: environmentalists”, 30^th May 2019

…Two environmental organizations have warned that the government cannot legally start construction of the new oil refinery on the Tabasco coast on June 2 because it hasn’t obtained the required permits. President López Obrador said yesterday that his administration has “prior authorization” to begin work on the Dos Bocas refinery, declaring “I’m going to initiate the works . . . on Sunday.” He added that if any additional permits are needed, they will be obtained. The president announced earlier this month that the state oil company and the Secretariat of Energy (Sener) will build the refinery because the bids made by private companies were too high and their estimated time frames to complete the project were too long…[T]he Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Cemda) and Greenpeace said in a statement that the project doesn’t have the required permits as stipulated by environmental laws. “We reiterate that to this day, an environmental impact statement that corresponds specifically to the refinery project has not been submitted to [ASEA],” they said. “Therefore, that department has not started the evaluation of the corresponding environmental impact and consequently there is no favorable environmental impact ruling that allows the project in question to go ahead.”…