ExxonMobil has signed an agreement with Mexico’s CombuRed to rebrand 35 of CombuRed’s fuel stations in the central state of San Luis Potosi. With this deal, ExxonMobil will have 85 Mobil-branded stations in Mexico, following its partnership with another company, Orsan, in the Bajio region.

ExxonMobil has pledged to invest USD 300 million in the next 10 years in Mexico’s downstream sector, according to Carlos Rivas, ExxonMobil’s fuels director in Mexico.

“We are going to be Mexico’s leaders in midstream infrastructure,” Rivas said.

San Luis Potosi is a growing manufacturing center, and car ownership there has doubled to almost one million over the last decade. Gasoline demand in Mexico is expected to grow by 40% over the next 25 years.

While other oil companies which have recently opened retail outlets in Mexico, such as BP, Gulf Mexico, Total, Shell and Glencore’s G500 Network, are sourcing their fuel from state-owned Pemex, ExxonMobil is importing fuel using unit trains from its Beaumont, Texas refinery in the United States. ExxonMobil has access to two fuel train terminals serviced by Kansas City Southern Mexico in San Jose Iturbide, in Guanajuato state, and San Luis Potosi, in San Luis Potosi state.

ExxonMobil would supply fuel to the region surrounding Mexico City in the first half of 2019, once the first phase of Invex’s Tuxpan-Mexico Valley pipeline project is completed.