AMLO’s love affair with Pemex is stalling the drive for renewable energies in Mexico

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By Thomas Graham for The Guardian

“The decline of Mexico’s oil industry is closely tied to its era of dependence on fossil fuels. Previous governments used Pemex as a “cash cow” instead of introducing broad fiscal reforms in Mexico. This deprived Pemex of capital to maintain and develop assets, pushing it to borrow.”

According to The Guardian, the coastline of Tabasco, a waterlogged and oil-rich state on the Gulf of Mexico, is a tangle of mangroves and pipelines belonging to Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the state-owned hydrocarbons company. Its new $17bn (£13bn) Olmeca refinery at Dos Bocas, in President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s home state of Tabasco, symbolises his commitment to reviving Pemex and making the country energy self-sufficient – even if it means going all-in on oil.

But storms, floods and rising sea levels have put Mexico’s coastal life at risk. “With climate change, the floods are getting out of control,” says Lilia Gama, an ecology professor in Tabasco. “They last longer, spread further [and] accumulate in certain places. And this is no longer necessarily enriching the soil as it used to – it is causing the vegetation to rot.”

Tabasco and Pemex are intertwined. Pemex is in 14 of its 17 municipalities, with installations covering 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) and underground pipelines running for 5,000 miles (8,000km). Roughly half of Mexico’s oil comes from Tabasco, and half of the state’s GDP comes from oil.

Click here to read the complete, original article by Thomas Graham  on The Guardian

Source: The Guardian

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