Seeking to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship.
09/20/2020
Source: U.S. News & World Report
LA BOQUILLA DAM, Mexico (Reuters) – Protesters gathered on Sunday in drought-hit northern Mexico in an attempt to retain control of a dam key to government efforts to diffuse tensions over a water sharing pact with the United States.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has been working to maintain a good relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, said on Friday that Mexico has to comply with its obligations.
09/17/2020
Source: AP
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president vowed Thursday to repay the country’s water debt to the United States, even if it means asking farmers in Mexican states along the U.S. border to pitch in.
Time is running out for Mexico to pay the debt by the Oct. 24 deadline, especially after protesters seized a dam in Chihuahua state to stop water transfers.
09/17/2020
Source: Bloomberg
Petroleos Mexicanos expects a drastic drop in oil exports over the next three years as the company faces the twin challenges of declining output and supplying crude to a controversial new $8 billion refinery championed by the country’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Pemex, as the state oil company is also called, is forecasting a reduction of almost 70% in exports of its flagship heavy crude known as Maya between 2021 and 2023, according to two people familiar with the situation. It expects to cut Maya exports by almost half between next year and 2022 and lower them again between 2022 and 2023, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information hasn’t been made public.
09/10/2020
Source: Bloomberg
Tomás Morales Vega shivered and huddled close to his co-workers in a narrow corridor outside the doctor’s office. They knew they’d be waiting awhile—there was only one doctor on the Pol-A platform processing center, one of almost 240 platforms and other structures operated in the Gulf of Mexico by Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company. Outside, wind whipped the platform and waves smashed into its towering steel legs.
Morales, a 62-year-old mechanical integrity engineer, had been feeling ill for days, but when he finally saw the doctor he was told to return to his bunk; there were many other people who were sicker than he was. He kept working. He ate his meals in a poorly ventilated dining room with as many as 100 other people. He shared 160 square feet of living space with three men as he tried to ignore his worsening dizziness, fever, and headaches. By the time a helicopter came for him on April 16, the sky buzzed with air ambulances evacuating the sick from the platforms and a nearby Pemex flotel, a floating hotel that sleeps 700 workers. “There were a lot of infected people,” Morales says. “The doctors couldn’t get people off the platforms fast enough.”
09/09/2020
Source: Al Jazeera
Two people died in a gunfight with Mexico’s military police near a protest site at a dam that diverts water to the United States, the National Guard has said, as tensions rose between protesters and officials in the drought-hit region.
Mexicans in the northern border state of Chihuahua, angry at the water being funnelled across the border, on Tuesday evening had hurled Molotov cocktails and rocks at security forces, eventually occupying the La Boquilla dam and closing the sluice gates.
09/08/2020
Source: Bloomberg
Mexico is cutting its 2021 forecast for oil production at Petroleos Mexicanos by 8.4% as the state producer struggles under a $107 billion debt load and the impact of the deadly coronavirus.
The country’s Finance Ministry lowered its preliminary estimate for output next year to 1.857 million barrels a day, down from 2.027 million in an April forecast, according to a draft of next year’s budget proposal obtained by Bloomberg News.
09/04/2020
Source: Natural Gas Intelligence
Editor’s Note: NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index, a leader tracking Mexico natural gas market reform, is offering the following question-and-answer (Q&A) column as part of a regular interview series with experts in the Mexican natural gas market.
This 38th Q&A in the series is with Duncan Wood, Director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute and internationally renowned specialist on North American politics, Mexico and U.S.-Mexican ties. Wood regularly lectures and publishes on North American issues, gives testimony to the U.S. Congress on U.S.-Mexico relations and is an expert on Mexican politics and the energy industry.
January 8, 2020
Source: The Wall Street Journal
By: Robbie Whelan
All rights reserved by heikoosMexico City— One of Mexico’s largest oil discoveries of the last two decades, the Zama field in the shallow waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico, likely contains 670 million barrels of recoverable oil, according to new estimates released by a consortium of drilling companies that owns rights to it.
Check out the latest Mexico Institute publications on Mexico’s energy reform debate, as well as opportunities for U.S.-Mexico cooperation on solar, wind and bioenergy projects.
12/7/19 – Mexico News Daily
Source: Notimex (sp), Reuters (en)
“Pemex announced on Friday that it has discovered a huge oil deposit in Tabasco that could yield 500 million barrels of crude.
State oil company CEO Octavio Romero said Pemex could confirm the existence of a “giant deposit” at the Quesqui field, located in Huimanguillo.”
12/04/19 – Reuters
By Marianna Parraga, Adriana Barrera
With Mexico’s government insisting that energy companies increase oil and gas output before it auctions off more of the country’s vast reserves or offers more partnerships with state-run Pemex, firms ranging from foreign majors to local players are scrambling to buy and sell blocks they already own.
The negotiations are creating a dynamic secondary market for oil acreage, which could be the only investment opportunity left for firms until leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador unblocks his predecessor’s flagship energy reform that has seen no new licensing rounds since 2018.
