Petroleum industry in Mexico
[10] In Mexico's colonial era (1521–1821), ranchers lost cattle to tar pits in the Gulf Coast Region,[11] so it was considered more of a hazard than a valuable resource.
[11] In 1846, the first modern oil well in the world was drilled in the South Caucasus region of Russian Empire, on the Absheron Peninsula north-east of Baku (in settlement Bibi-Heybat).
[13] July 1908, British entrepreneur Weetman Pearson struck oil in San Diego de la Mar, a co-proprietorship, that had been divided up into 87 individual lots, due to the privatization of lands.
The two main companies Edward Doheny's Huasteca Petroleum, and Weetman Pearson's El Aguila were able to secure a large sum of land rights through ownership, and leasing.
[22] In the 1930s, as a consequence of worldwide economic depression, the lack of new oil discoveries, increased taxation, political instability, and Venezuela's emergence as a more attractive source of petroleum, output fell to just 20% of its 1921 level.
[23] Production began to recover with the 1932 discovery of the Poza Rica field near Veracruz, which would become Mexico's main source of petroleum for the next several decades.
On December 18, the Arbitration Board declared in favor of the union and ordered the oil companies had to pay 26 million pesos in lost wages because of the strike.
The government assumed control of all property of nearly every oil company operating in Mexico, including machinery, equipment, buildings, refineries, gas stations, ships and pipelines.
On June 7, 1938, the state-owned company Petróleos Mexicanos (or "Pemex") was founded, with exclusive rights over exploration, extraction, refining, and commercialization of oil in Mexico.
[27] Diplomatic relations between the countries were soon broken, but not before Mexico paid a debt claimed by the British government for damages caused during the Mexican Revolution.
[33] Soon after, students at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional and the National Autonomous University of Mexico were able to synthesize tetraethyl lead, a popular gasoline additive at the time used for boosting octane ratings.
Gradually, companies that sold parts and equipment gave in as Mexico opted to buy from Germany, Italy and other European countries.
Purchases of Mexican silver were suspended, which represented an average amount of $30 million annually, although after 1938 sales were resumed in smaller quantities and lower prices.
[35] In 1938, Mexico had voted during the Pan-American Conference in favor of establishing continental solidarity against non-American and non-democratic influences, an allusion to the governments of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hirohito.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was more interested in forming a strategic alliance with Mexico to create an anti-fascist front than in protecting private companies and had already proclaimed the Good Neighbor Policy in 1933.
From 1977 to 1980, Pemex received $12.6 billion in international credit, representing 37% of Mexico's total foreign debt but nevertheless used the money to construct and operate offshore drilling platforms.
[41] In 2013, the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto implemented a policy of liberalization that officially opened Mexico's oil industry to investment by foreign companies.
[45] Current president Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo has indicated that she plans to continue the energy policies implemented under the AMLO administration, stating that the neoliberal period of 2007–2018 was "very damaging" to Pemex.
[51] The "South Zone" for Pemex includes the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and the southern portions of Guerreo, Oaxaca and Veracruz with exploration beginning in 1863 with Father Manuel Gil y Sainz's San Fernando Mine near Tepetitan Town, Tabasco, Dr. Simon Sarlat's well in 1883, and commercial production from the Capoacan and San Cristobal oil fields in 1905 and 1906 respectively.
[52] Fields discovered with associated salt diapirs in the Saline Basin, near Coatzacoalcos, include Tonala-El Burro (1928), El Plan (1929), Cinco Presidentes (1946), Magallanes (1957) and Ogarrio (1957).
[54] Fields discovered with associated anticlines in the Macuspana Basin, between Villahermosa and Ciudad del Carmen, include Jose Colomo (1951), Chilapilla (1956) and Hormiguero.
[57] Beginning with the desire for gold and silver in the sixteenth century, both foreign and domestic powers have mined the landscape of Mexico for natural resources and precious goods with a primarily financial focus and not an environmental one.
The original open pit mining for metals like iron had devastating impacts such as loss of mountain landscapes, toxic waste disposal, and the demolition of entire ecosystems.
[63] In 1908, a fire at the Dos Bocas drilling site caused fear and panic among the residents of Tantima, the local village, as the explosion rocked the area.
After burning for over a month and killing a small number of people, the Dos Bocas fire created a dangerous area that most residents avoided.
Poza Rica, a typical oil town in Mexico, was the subject of a study that revealed the difficulties associated with living in an area dominated by petroleum drilling.
[66] The inhabitants of Poza Rica are constantly renegotiating their everyday lives to fit the changing landscape around them; this includes practicing large and small safety measures, ignoring toxic smells in the air, and recovering from the loss of jobs when oil fields are retired.
Petroleum exploration and production activities are legally defined to be of social interest and public order, and are given priority over any other potential exploitation of surface or subsoil resources.
Elder residents mentioned that the arrival of the petroleum industry to their community in 1954 marked the beginning of a decline in the use of the indigenous Totonac language and in the practice of traditional means of subsistence.
[7][70] In the rural settlement of Lázaro Cardenas in Comalcalco, Tabasco, residents overwhelmingly reported having lived through at least one disaster or accident due to Pemex's extraction of oil in the region.
