Mexico, one of the world's biggest oil producers, is running out
By Valerie Rota and Patrick Harrington
Bloomberg News
MEXICO CITY: President Felipe Calderón of Mexico is delivering a grim message: The largest oil producer in Latin America is running out of crude.
"Our oil reserves have been consistently falling," and the decline is "severely threatening" government finances, Calderón told a nationwide television audience in an address last month at the National Palace. That is the same place where seven decades earlier Lázaro Cárdenas cemented the anti-U.S. legacy of his presidency by nationalizing the oil industry.
Mexico was the sixth-biggest producer last year, after Saudi Arabia, Russia, United States, Iran and China, down from fifth in 2005, according to the Energy Information Administration. In 1921, Mexico was No. 2.
Calderón said in his Sept. 2 address that the country held proven reserves that could last nine years. Venezuela, the second-biggest oil producer in Latin America, has reserves to keep pumping at current levels for more than a century.
The ban on private investment in its oil monopoly is depriving Mexico of the benefits of record high prices and contributing to a slowdown in economic growth. Production of crude, the top export for Mexico, has fallen 8 percent since 2004 to a seven-year low, data compiled by the government show.
(Continued here.)
Bloomberg News
MEXICO CITY: President Felipe Calderón of Mexico is delivering a grim message: The largest oil producer in Latin America is running out of crude.
"Our oil reserves have been consistently falling," and the decline is "severely threatening" government finances, Calderón told a nationwide television audience in an address last month at the National Palace. That is the same place where seven decades earlier Lázaro Cárdenas cemented the anti-U.S. legacy of his presidency by nationalizing the oil industry.
Mexico was the sixth-biggest producer last year, after Saudi Arabia, Russia, United States, Iran and China, down from fifth in 2005, according to the Energy Information Administration. In 1921, Mexico was No. 2.
Calderón said in his Sept. 2 address that the country held proven reserves that could last nine years. Venezuela, the second-biggest oil producer in Latin America, has reserves to keep pumping at current levels for more than a century.
The ban on private investment in its oil monopoly is depriving Mexico of the benefits of record high prices and contributing to a slowdown in economic growth. Production of crude, the top export for Mexico, has fallen 8 percent since 2004 to a seven-year low, data compiled by the government show.
(Continued here.)
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