Into deep water

摘要

In some ways, Mexico's oil industry has never done better. Pemex, the giant state oil and gas monopoly, is producing record amounts of crude oil and natural gas. Its oil output last year averaged 3.38m barrels per day, up 12% since 2000. Since 2001, President Vicente Fox's government has made an effort to reduce the federal budget's dependence on oil. This, together with high oil prices, has allowed Pemex to invest some $10 billion a year, or roughly double the average of the previous two decades. But that is dwarfed by the almost $40 billion that Pemex paid the government last year in taxes and the transfer of profits. The oil firm still provides more than a third of total government revenues. And therein lies a problem. Unable or unwilling to free the oil industry, Mexico's politicians are flogging their cash cow into the ground.