Mexico’s past experiences in transferring strategic state-owned assets to private companies has often delivered mixed results, with telecommunications and banking being two of the most revealing examples. In these two cases, Mexicans have endured the consequences of market concentration and high prices, while on the part of investors the outcome has been handsome profits. Thus, it comes as no surprise...
Developing a private sector in the oil and gas industry is surely a huge undertaking—even more so in a country where private investment was banned for almost eight decades. How can a private oil and gas sector be built after all this time? Change the rules of the game, establish a clear bidding process, select some attractive assets to be...
While Pemex was the sole player in Mexico’s oil and gas industry, gasoline theft seemed to be something of a minor problem, a localized activity controlled by a few gangs. Fuel theft, however, has grown over time—partly due to a hands-off approach embraced by Mexican authorities for years, if not decades—and has reportedly attracted the attention of more sophisticated criminal...
