The state oil company, Pemex, has found 5,026 places along its oil pipelines since 2006 where thieves siphon off energy, and the theft is speeding up.
According to an Excelsior newspaper article, the value of the theft ascends to nearly half a billion dollars, just a fraction of Pemex’s $100 billion annual revenue but still a lot of money. Other estimates say the value of the losses are higher.
The states with the highest number of holes punched in the pipelines are Sinaloa, Nuevo Leon, Veracruz, Puebla and Tamaulipas.
The story said in a one-year period ending in November, thieves relieved Mexican taxpayers of revenue from 2,986,563 barrels of oil, 52 percent higher than the 1,959,439 barrels that went missing in the previous year. Read here and here to find out more about oil theft in Mexico (in English). Much of the oil appears to be stolen by gangs linked to Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel.
where thieves siphon off energy, and the theft is speeding up.
Posted by: lacoste uk | 04/11/2012 at 04:36 AM
Which leads to the obvious question- how do they sell half a billion dollars worth of oil a year? Crude isn't worth anything if you don't have a refinery to take it.
With so few refineries to monitor, it would seem this theft must be sanctioned by a government.
Posted by: ypochris | 04/07/2012 at 10:16 PM