Pipeline Theft is the Latest Major Threat to Mexico's Battered Oil Industry Christopher Woody - Business Insider
go to original February 9, 2016

CCTV America investigates the Mexican region known for oil thefts (CCTV America)

Mexican oil prices fell after a brief rally last week, slipping to $24.47 a barrel and prolonging the slide of one of the country’s most lucrative exports.

In addition to the continuing downstream pain — or the brutally low prices oil is being sold for on the market — Mexico’s oil industry is dealing with a severe theft problem preventing an increasing amount of its production from ever getting to market.



Pipeline theft in Mexico rose 52% in 2015 according to an Associated Press report, a spike that comes after a 43.7% annual increase recorded in 2014. The number of illegal taps has risen from 132 in 2001 to 3,348 in 2014.

“It is usually people from rural hamlets who live near the pipeline,” an official from the state-owned oil company, Pemex, told the AP.

“They have broken through security perimeters on almost two dozen occasions in the last year, built dams to create diesel containment ponds and hauled up fuel by the bucketful to sell,” the AP added. Fuel theft is extremely dangerous, and dozens of civilians have been killed in related fires over the past year.

Drug cartels have also found fuel theft especially profitable.

Read the rest at Business Insider

Related: Mexico's Pena Nieto Axes Pemex Ceo, Orders Cost-Cuts Amid Oil Slump (Reuters)

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