Mexico’s state oil company, Pemex, is quietly expanding its use of fracking, renamed “stimulation of complex geological deposits,” to boost gas and oil production, despite political and environmental controversy. Facing heavy debt and declining output, Pemex aims to tap into vast shale reserves to reduce dependence on US gas imports. While officials downplay the term “fracking” due to past bans and public opposition, the practice is central to Pemex’s new strategy. However, financial constraints, lack of private investment, and safety concerns in cartel-controlled areas pose major challenges. President Claudia Sheinbaum must now balance energy security with environmental promises. They write:
In the swampy lowlands of Mexico’s Gulf Coast, Petroleos Mexicanos is pumping high-pressure jets of water, chemicals and sand into the ground to crack open natural gas-soaked rocks that are so hard they don’t yield to traditional drilling.
In most of the world, the technique is calling fracking. But in Mexico, where the practice is still deeply controversial, Pemex has a different name for it: “stimulation of complex geological deposits.” […]
“What you know of as fracking is very different today, we are not going to do that,” Pemex Chief Executive Officer Victor Rodriguez told lawmakers in August. “But the potential is there. So what are we going to do? Leave it in the ground, continue drilling the fields we have, and remain dependent on the US for gas?” […]
Sheinbaum, who was voted into office on promises to clean up Pemex, has indicated she must balance the goals of boosting Pemex’s output and protecting communities from environmental harm.
“Nothing is decided yet, and it needs to be put to the public’s consideration,” she said in one of her daily press conferences, adding that experts from Pemex and Mexico’s Petroleum Institute are studying options for exploiting unconventional deposits. “But there is an important issue: our dependence on natural gas.”
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