Six pipelines blown up in Mexico

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

From an article by Reed Johnson in the Los Angeles Times:

MEXICO CITY -- -- In an apparent case of politically motivated sabotage, six explosions blew apart oil and natural gas pipelines operated by Mexico's Pemex state oil and gas monopoly early Monday in Veracruz and Tlaxcala states, causing fires and forcing the evacuation of 15,000 people from surrounding towns.

The blasts forced Pemex to shut down at least four affected pipelines and prompted federal authorities to close two major roads. No injuries were reported.

Mexico is the world's sixth-largest oil producer and a major supplier of petroleum to the U.S. The outages drove the price of oil above $78 a barrel in futures trading Monday. . . .

The attacks have hit Pemex, one of Mexico's largest revenue-generating sources, in a year when the company already is suffering from a drop in exports. Only an estimated decade's worth of reserves remain at the company's Cantarell field in the Gulf of Mexico, where production has been declining. The country depends heavily on oil production to help fill the government's coffers, and further cuts could affect government budgeting and even trigger a deeper financial emergency.