State-owned Petroleos Mexicanos will spend more than $12 billion to build one new oil refinery and upgrade an existing facility, Pemex chief Jesus Reyes Heroles said in Mexico City Tuesday.

Mexico's first new refinery in three decades is to be located in Tula, Hidalgo state, and Pemex expects the plant to be operational by sometime in 2015, Reyes told a press conference in the capital, while the expansion of the facility in Salamanca, Guanajuato, should be complete by the end of 2014.

The aim of both projects is enabling Mexico - a major oil exporter - to reduce the amount of gasoline it imports from the United States, currently running at 340,000 barrels per day.

Reyes stressed that the new refinery will allow Pemex "to avoid continuing to send jobs abroad."

Between them, the Tula refinery and the refitted Salamanca plant are expected to produce 300,000 bpd of gasoline, but without additional projects, Mexico, a key U.S. supplier of crude, would still have to import 500,000 bpd of fuel.

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