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Oil Suddenly Gets Ugly in Mexico
Oil Suddenly Gets Ugly in Mexico
Mexico’s energy revolution could prove to be a bitter pill for the vast rump of the Mexican population, who stand to lose out on billions of dollars of annual state funds provided by the newly privatized but financially crippled oil company Pemex.
But where there are losers, there are inevitably winners. In this case the biggest beneficiaries will be some of the world’s largest oil and gas majors — particularly those in the U.S. — and well-connected local politicians. Chief among them is former Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada, whose private equity firm Energy and Infrastructure Mexico (EIM) has just signed a joint venture with Aubrey McClendon, former CEO of natural gas giant Chesapeake Energy and current CEO of American Energy Partners (AEP).
A Well-Oiled Revolving Door
The partnership’s main purpose, according to Sin Embargo, is to exploit the vast exploration and development opportunities opened up by Mexico’s newly privatized and liberalized energy sector.
“This is a significant vote of confidence in the Energy Reform program championed by current Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, and in the myriad possibilities offered by Mexico’s unconventional resources,” hailed a joint press release. Those resources include Mexico’s side of the Eagle Ford Shale basin.
EIM Capital’s own website admits, with seemingly not even a hint of shame, that the company was “founded in anticipation of Mexico’s historic Constitutional (Energy) Reform of 2013,” a reform for which Fox himself helped pave the way during his six-year presidential mandate (2000-2006), as recently confirmed by a 2005 State Department diplomatic cable about Fox’s first visit to Alberta recently leaked by Wikileaks:
“[T]he Mexican Trade Consul in Calgary…[said] there continues to be much interest in investing in Mexico’s energy sector… The Trade Consul said it is ‘painful‘ to let Mexico’s resources sit in the ground.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Australian Aboriginals Fear Gas Fracker Aubrey McClendon’s Down Under Drilling Plans
Energy companies the world over would love to think they could be first in the queue at the next big global frontier for fossil fuel energy.
Aubrey McClendon was a key figure in creating the last big energy boom in his own backyard, using the controversial hydraulic fracturing technology to release gas from shale in the United States.
Now McClendon’s company American Energy Partners (AEP) thinks it has found that new global frontier in a vast and remote corner of Australia’s Northern Territory (NT).
AEP has made two major investments in the NT in recent weeks where drillers hope McClendon will kick-start another fracking boom. McClendon built his former company Chesapeake Energy from the ground up to become a major player in the United States shale gas fracking boom.
At one point, only ExxonMobil was producing more gas than Chesapeake.
But already McClendon’s hopes of recreating a US-style gas “fracking” boom in Australia are coming up against resistance from Aboriginal Australians — one of the oldest continuous cultural groups on the planet.
Land grab
Exploration licences cover many millions of acres of land in the NT and many of those are with a view to drilling for gas using hydraulic fracturing — a process where large amounts of water, sand and chemicals are pumped at pressure to create small cracks in the rocks to release the gas.
A key to McClendon’s success in the U.S. was in acquiring rights over huge land areas of prospective shale gas, a tactic he appears to be trying to mirror in Australia. Chesapeake Energy called this a “land grab” business strategy.
McClendon is also known for his financial risk taking, a trait that caused one analyst at business magazine Forbes to dub him “America’s most reckless billionaire
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
