A new phase in Mexico’s hydrocarbon economy
The energy transition in Mexico will look less like its environmentalist president promised and more like a series of controversial compromises.
The Big News Breakdown. Unpacking this week’s most important news.
Forty years ago, the roles would have been switched. Today, Petrobras—Brazil’s national oil company—is coming to help Pemex—Mexico’s venerated but incredibly indebted State-run hydrocarbon firm—with technical help to keep mature oil fields going.
It is a fitting metaphor: The nimble upstart now helps the grand but doddery old man of Latin American oil to cross his own backyard. Years of mismanagement and underinvestment in technology have left Pemex in a deplorable situation, forcing the government of Claudia Sheinbaum to make decisions previously considered anathema to the president or her left-wing Morena party’s principles.
Two new approaches to oil and gas
