On August 5, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum released a strategic 10-year plan for the beleaguered state oil company, Pemex. The plan proposes the “reactivation of unconventional geological reserves”—a veiled euphemism for oil extraction via fracking, which is currently limited in the country. The proposal has provoked a backlash from environmental activists, and is especially notable considering that the leftwing leader previously served as a UN climate scientist and campaigned on promoting renewables. But the reality of Mexico’s precarious energy sovereignty—particularly in the face of an ongoing trade war with Washington—has led Sheinbaum to contemplate expanding the controversial practice.
Pemex itself is a source of national pride for ordinary Mexicans and the country’s governing Morena party founded by Sheinbaum’s mentor and predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). Before Morena, Pemex adhered to the neoliberal logic of market efficiency. The firm was stripped of its monopoly over oil exploration, and long-term investment in novel methods of extraction was foregone in favor of exporting crude north as the country’s largest and most productive oil field—the Cantarell—dried up. As a result, oil production collapsed, Pemex’s debt skyrocketed, and Mexico imported huge amounts of gasoline from the US.