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.
10/29/2020
Source: Reuters
MEXICO CITY, Oct 29 (Reuters) – The oil fields prioritized for development since 2019 by Petroleos Mexicanos have significantly underperformed the Mexican state oil company’s targets, data from the national oil regulator (CNH) showed on Thursday.
Of 20 priority fields, 16 have executed investments – 13 of which are offshore in the southern Gulf of Mexico – and only 10 have completed wells through August.
10/24/2020
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune
MEXICO CITY — Standing in front of a reopened coal-fired power plant, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Saturday defiantly rejected complaints by a group of 43 U.S. lawmakers about government policy favoring state companies in the energy market.
Six U.S. senators and 37 representatives wrote this week to President Donald Trump complaining about “actions by the government of Mexico that threaten U.S. energy companies’ investment and market access and undermine the spirit of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement” that went into effect this year.
10/07/2020
Source: Bloomberg
Mexico’s oil hedge is the largest annual oil deal in Wall Street, but this year the finance ministry has kept the $1 billion operation strictly under wraps — even declaring its details a state secret. Time is running out to do the deal for 2021, though, and the market is abuzz with rumors.
Every year, the Latin American nation locks in the price of its oil exports by buying put options from Wall Street banks. The deal typically roils the market, creating violent swings in the price of oil options.
09/22/2020
Source: Reuters
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s president asked regulators on Tuesday to help strengthen state oil firm Pemex and power company CFE using existing laws, but added he could seek energy reforms next year if required to meet his goals, two sources said.
The sources, who were at the closed-door meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity, said President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called on energy regulators to avoid issuing permits that would prevent private competitors to Pemex and CFE from expanding their footprint in the country.
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.
