As Nancy Pelosi tries to save the planet by blocking offshore drilling in the US, other folks have their eyes on Pemex, Mexicos nationalized oil company. I wrote two posts, and will do more, to explain why that this company is and remains nationalized is so important to Mexico (I only got up to 1910). Regardless, this analysis of Pemex's current severe problems in McClatchy is quite good.
Pemex is the number three provider of petroleum to the United States. US oil companies have been drooling with desire for Pemex for a long time, maybe since as long ago as Standard Oil lost it to Mexico in 1938. Today, Felipe Calderón, Mexico's president, is trying to arrive at reforms that would give to such companies some contracts to build and operate refineries.
The problem is that once again, the wrong solutions to real problems are getting the most consideration.
Like the drug situation. The US wants to intrude into Mexico itself and militarize even more extensively Mexico's antidrug efforts, benefitting US contractors at the same time. But US antidrug policies elsewhere are failed policies (think Afghanistan, Colombia) and the reasons are pretty clear. Now the PAN government is considering letting US companies come in and get their claws into Mexico's oil industry -- AGAIN! Oil companies are not likely to fail as drug efforts have, quite the contrary. But if you know anything about US oil companies, you know they are NOT interested in any more than their own bottom lines. They will just be more in a long line of foreign companies that have made Mexico's bottom line look better while leeching (with the close cooperation and benefit of Mexico's richest in many cases) resources from the country. This isn't quite fair, perhaps, but it's close.
Pemex does need to be reformed. It just that Exxon and Shell are the wrong tools.