Is this the begining of the End of Mexico and [i]Oil[/i]

[Sigurd]

Massive taxation for social purposes seems to have crippled Pemex's ability to discover new oil fields to replace those that inevitably dry up.

Pemex is a state owned company just as our Statoil...
If I remember correctly the state of Mexico borrowed a heap load of money to invest in technology and build up Pemex resulting in Mexico getting 5th place in the world for oil-export.
My knowledge of Mexico is not as good but could it be that this loan is straining her economy and results in bad decision making on further development in her oil sector?

Let the future reveal itself, hopefully we can share some of our technology. We do proud ourselves of being a world leader in technology development for off-shore oil production. We don't want the US finding other sources for energy and thingme production.

[Vladimir]

The problem is (surprise), Socialism! That's right! Because of the Mexican nationalization of its natural resources outside investment isn't allowed (maybe to a small extent). I read an interesting article a while back (sorry, don't have the link) comparing and contrasting Canada’s (Quebec?) natural resources policy to Mexico's. Both countries say the state owns the land and the resources under it but Canada allows private companies to extract if for them (a good ballance?). In Mexico, only they state is allowed to extract the oil. Therefore the technology needed to make their fields productive isn’t available and everyone suffers except for their corrupt politicians (in the finest Spanish tradition of course).

[Sigurd]

The problem is (surprise), Socialism!

This shouldn't be the problem...

[Redleg]

Oh wait - I forgot to mention this little tidbit. Some oil experts are arguing because of the comet strike that is believed to have created the Gulf of Mexico that there is plently of oil in the deep sea in the Gulf.

http://www.energybulletin.net/1957.html

State oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said last week the company has mapped out seven blocks of potential hydrocarbon reserves that could contain 54 billion barrels of oil, 45 billion of that under deep water in the Gulf of Mexico.