You better believe it is significant. A Mexican meltdown scenario looks alot like 30 million refugees streaming across the southern border. Have to keep an eye on this thing. Thanks.
Attack On Mexico Key Natural Gas Pipeline Causes Cos To Shut
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
July 11, 2007 11:55 a.m.
MEXICO CITY (AP)--National and international corporations were shut down Wednesday in Mexico and faced millions of dollars in losses following rebel attacks on a key natural gas pipeline running from Mexico City to Guadalajara.
The small, left-wing guerrilla group that claimed responsibility for the explosions issued a follow-up statement late Tuesday vowing to continue the attacks, while the Mexican government scrambled to increase security at "strategic installations" across Mexico.
Honda (HMC), Kellogg's (K), Hershey's (HSY), Nissan (NSANY) and Grupo Modelo (GPMCY) are just some of an estimated dozen companies that have had to shut down or cut back operations because of the sudden loss of natural gas, the daily newspaper Excelsior reported Wednesday.
Vitro SAB (VTO), a Mexican company that makes glass containers, issued a statement saying the forced shutdown of two plants due to the explosions would cost it about $800,000 a day. Vitro said it was attempting to minimize effects on customers with the support of its other container plants in the country.
Total business losses are being estimated at more than 70 million pesos ($6.4 million) a day, Excelsior reported, citing unidentified sources. The association representing Mexican industry said Wednesday it was looking into the extent of the explosions' financial impact.
Officials from Mexico's state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said Tuesday's explosion and two explosions last week affected different sections of the same pipeline.
Mexico's Pemex Says Natural Gas Supplies To Queretaro Resumed
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
July 12, 2007 11:35 a.m.
MEXICO CITY (Dow Jones)--Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos said Thursday it has resumed natural gas deliveries to the city of Queretaro after supplies were cut off by an attack early Tuesday on a gas pipeline in central Mexico.
A Pemex spokeswoman said the state company has resumed supplies to the local gas distributor in Queretaro, and expects to start sending gas further west to Guadalajara and other cities in the region on Friday.
Hundreds of companies were reported to be affected by a series of attacks on the 36-inch pipeline that runs from Mexico City to Guadalajara. The pipeline was hit by two explosions last Thursday and another, in Queretaro, in the early hours Tuesday.
Two other pipelines, an oil pipeline and a liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, pipeline were also damaged by Tuesday's explosion, which occurred at a valve station.
Pemex said it expects to begin tests on the oil pipeline Thursday afternoon, with supplies to be resumed several hours later.
The pipeline attacks had no effect on oil production or exports. Pemex currently produces about 3.15 million barrels a day of crude oil, of which it exports about 1.7 million barrels a day, mostly to the U.S. The impact of the disruption in the LPG line was lessened as private distributors helped to increase tanker truck deliveries. The oil pipeline damage caused a drop in gasoline and diesel production at the Salamanca refinery, however, and supplies of those fuels were brought in from other facilities.
"What we are doing is reinforcing this presence, particularly in our network of pipelines," a spokesman said.
Mexico is the world's No. 9 exporter of crude oil and valued by the United States as a politically stable supplier.
"The army is guarding the (oil and gas) installations and, logically, we are on alert," said Andres Granier, governor of oil-rich Tabasco state where newly arrived soldiers were visible at gas processing and petrochemical plants.
Gideon wrote:The effect on Mexico will be devastating - no doubt.
But, given their impoverished status and their dependence on oil revenue for social welfare, it's shocking to me that there does not seem to be a hue and a cry that things are about to go loco.
dsula wrote:Well, what does th US do to avert the crisis, given their dependence on oil and dependence on cheap chinese imports? It's shocking to me that there does not seem to be a hue and a cry that things are about to go crazy.
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