Petroleum Output: US, China + Mexico

choi

Clifford Krauss, Shale Oil in Texas Keep Gas Prices More Affordable; Turmoil abroad, but a Texas bounty has moderated prices. New York Times, Aug 28, 2014.
www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/busin ... ces-affordable.html

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read text. View the graphic only: US is doing very well; Canada moderately; China not bad; Mexico not included.
(b) The report is dispatched from Three Rivers, Texas: “The reason for the improved economics of road travel can be found 10,000 feet below the ground here, where the South Texas Eagle Ford shale is providing more than a million new barrels of oil supplies to the world market every day.”

Three Rivers, Texas
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Rivers,_Texas
(a city; population was 1,878 at the 2000 census; “The city is named for its proximity to three rivers, the Atascosa River, the Frio River, and the Nueces River (the Atascosa joins the Frio north of the city, while the Frio joins the Nueces south of the city)”)

choi

Jeffrey Ball, The Drain of Mexico’s (Black) Gold. Seventy-six years after nationalizing its oil business, Mexico invites foreign companies back to drill. What will it mean for mighty PEMEX--and for the nation’s self-image?  Fortune, Sept 1, 2014.
fortune.com/2014/08/14/pemex-oil-black-gold/

Quote:

(a) "Ever since 1938, when Mexico expropriated its gushing oilfields from foreign companies in a burst of revolutionary nationalism, that bounty has been off-limits to outside producers. The oil has been the exclusive purview of Pemex. Favored by geology as well as by law, the company has had the luxury of getting most of its oil from a couple of huge, easy-to-tap underground formations—known in the industry as “elephants.” Indeed, Pemex has become legendary in the oil world for its factory-like approach to pulling oil from a particularly Mexican type of elephant: fields in shallow water, just off the country’s Gulf coast. But along the way, Pemex has become notoriously inefficient. The company ranked No. 36 among the Fortune Global 500 last year, with revenue of $126 billion. But Pemex also posted a $13 billion net loss. The company is laden with bureaucracy, teeming with superfluous workers, and, by its own executives’ admission, thwarted by corruption. The result is both stunning and not very surprising: In a country that ranks ninth or 10th in global oil production, depending on who’s counting, and that some geologists say contains the largest unexplored petroleum area beyond the Arctic Circle, Pemex has presided over a steep decline in Mexico’s oil output.

"That decline—Mexico’s oil production has tanked 25% over the past decade, to 2 million barrels per day—threatens the country’s ability to pay its bills. Pemex’s oil revenue is the single biggest contributor to the Mexican treasury, supplying roughly one third of the national budget.

(b) "March 18, the day Mexico’s revolutionary government grabbed the country’s oilfields from the gringos in 1938, is a national holiday. The event is a key element in Mexican schoolbooks and part of the country’s stick-it-to-the-man folklore. Pemex is the most recognizable brand in the country; its gas stations, painted in the national colors, green, white, and red, are the only mainstream places in Mexico to fill up a tank, and the government-subsidized prices don’t vary from pump to pump. The Pemex empire is by far the country’s biggest employer, providing paychecks to more than 150,000 Mexicans; it operates a network of hospitals, recreation centers, and libraries; and it has made not a few influential Mexicans very rich.

My comment:
(a) View the graphics. There is no need to read the rest.
(b) PEMEX  (Petróleos Mexicanos; Founded 1938; Headquarters  Mexico City)  en.wikipedia.org