The Battle for Pemex: a Mexican Oil Worker Explains Energy Reform by Kristin Bricker - November 4, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Mexican Congress approves light reforms for the state oil company; legislators vow to continue the campaign to privatize Pemex
... Narco News: How do you respond to politicians’ statements in the media that Mexico is running out of petroleum, so Pemex needs to be privatized before this happens?

Gomezcana Morales: Peak oil is a reality. Peak oil is petroleum’s downfall. This year we’ve hit peak oil at a global level--we’ve reached the zenith, and now comes the drop in petroleum reserves. We’re seeing this in Mexico. Mexico will stop producing petroleum. We’re not finding new oilfields. We’re already experiencing a strong decrease in petroleum reserves globally.

The problem is that there aren’t alternative projects. The few projects that exist that are searching for alternative energy sources are redundant. Foreigners are carrying out these projects. It’s written into Plan Puebla Panama that in the case of Mexico's wind power, instead of the [state-owned] electric company[4] having the responsibility to invest in wind power projects, they grant the right to install windmills in this zone to foreign private companies like Spain’s Repsol. It’s our wind, even though that sounds a little abstract. The profits won’t be for Mexico. The profits are for the foreign companies. Repsol doesn’t even have the infrastructure to carry out these types of projects. Repsol subcontracts the work to other foreign companies, just like Halliburton does. And they keep granting these projects to Repsol and Halliburton because the neoliberal governments--like Mexico’s--allow it.

Something else very important is going on in Mexico. No other country would permit the conflict of interests that exists in the Mexican Ministry of the Interior (Segob in its Spanish initials). Felipe Calderon’s little pet Juan Camilo Mourino [the current Secretary of the Interior] has a conflict of interest in our country’s energy sector.[5] He’s Spanish. So he’s promoting Spanish investment in our country. They have vested interests here.

To sum it up, there are two completely different projects here: the Global South’s project and the North’s project. Those of us from below, and the powerful. Those of us who defend all of our resources--one of them being petroleum--from projects like Plan Puebla Panama, and those who want what’s ours.

... [4] Electricity is also nationalized in Mexico under the government’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE in its Spanish initials).

[5] In 2002 and 20003, while working as an aid to then-Secretary of Energy Felipe Calderon, Mourino signed at least three energy contracts as an official representative of his father’s Mexican transportation company Transportes Especializados Ivancar. The contracts were for services provided to Pemex. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who presented the contracts to the media, said, “He obtained million-peso contracts by directly awarding them in order to benefit his family business.”

Juan Camilo Mourino (RIP) and Energy Reform in Mexico

Mr. Mourino's energy legacy is mixed: The energy reforms of 2008 are likely to benefit those service companies that, already, have lucrative contracts with Pemex. The reform of Article 33 of the Federal Administration Law provides that the Energy Ministry will submit to the Foreign Ministry (SRE) proposals for agreements and treaties for cross-border oilfields.

Juan Camilo Mourino (RIP) and Energy Reform in Mexico

Mr. Mourino's energy legacy is mixed: The energy reforms of 2008 are likely to benefit those service companies that, already, have lucrative contracts with Pemex. The reform of Article 33 of the Federal Administration Law provides that the Energy Ministry will submit to the Foreign Ministry (SRE) proposals for agreements and treaties for cross-border oilfields.

Juan Camilo Mourino, Secretario de Gobernacion, killed

It’s going to be impossible NOT to speculate on the narcotics angle… but given that among Mourino’s political activities during his short tenure was his attempt to “sell” PEMEX de-nationalization, the location of the crashsite is either an odd coincidence, or a very werid ironic statement.

The Calderon Administration has been trying -- with less and less success -- to claim the war on drug dealers will make Mexico safer. The recent arrests of high level police and security officials (including people working in the United States Embassy) for passing information to the narcos has only been the latest (and so far most serious) security breach to come out of the narco-war.
Politically, resistance to the Administration’s proposed PEMEX reforms -- pushed by Mourino -- will mean the Calderon Administration will be in even more difficulty and resistance from the opposition parties to other domestic programs is likely to increase

. There is a giant, ready customer just to their north, with insatiable demand. The stuff (especially weed) grows readily in their rich soil, under the prevailing weather conditions, and transportation is relatively simple, and best of all, the ruling elite that is involved in the other three are already deeply entrenched in the fourth.
There is the minor issue that it's illegal in the US, but the supply chain is already well developed, no problem to get the stuff cheaply in anyplace in the US.
So let the fun begin.

its hard to figure how this will generate all that much money for Mexico.