Analysis

Shale Development & the Environment: Policy Lessons for Latin America

As Latin American countries reassess their energy policies in light of lower oil prices, there is an opportunity to apply lessons learned from the US experience to enact regulations that mitigate environmental risks, strengthen public support, and attract investment.

Jed Bailey, Lisa Viscidi

Reports ˙

Nationalization & Its Discontents: Low Oil Prices & Latin America

As global oil prices collapsed over the last two years, regional governments have started to lose their leverage in the energy industry. To attract international investors, they must offer increasingly favorable terms, which means ceding more of their own control.

Lisa Viscidi

Articles & Op-Eds ˙ ˙ Foreign Affairs

Oil and Commodities: The End of the “Age of Abundance”

Across Latin America, the sustained decline in global oil prices has had a profound impact on economic growth, political stability and the viability of resource nationalism – when governments assert more control over the nation’s natural resources.

Lisa Viscidi, Rebecca O’Connor

Reports ˙ ˙ Italian Institute for International Political Studies

Mexican state oil company Pemex’s chief executive, Carlos Treviño, confirmed the discovery of seven reservoirs in two wells in Mexico’s southeast basin. // File Photo: Pemex.

Will Pemex’s New Oil Finds Reverse Output Declines?

Will Pemex’s most recent oil discoveries be enough to reverse the country’s output declines?

Doris Rodriguez, Carlos A. Chávez, Steven P. Otillar, Francisco de Rosenzweig, Maria Cortez, Carlos Ochoa

Energy Advisor ˙

The Unfinished Business of Mexico’s Energy Reform

Mexico’s 2013 energy reform has led to pledges of almost $200 billion of private investment and renewable power auctions garnering bids to provide electricity at record-low prices. The Mexican government should continue to build on the successes of the reform, César Hernández, former Mexican undersecretary for electricity, and Jorge Castilla, managing director for Mexico at Accenture, said at an event hosted by the Inter-American Dialogue, the Embassy of Mexico, and the Energy Policy Research Foundation.

Nate Graham

Event Summaries ˙

CSIS Video

What Will AMLO and Bolsonaro Do To Energy Markets?

New leaders in Mexico and Brazil may mean big changes to their respective energy sectors. Lisa Viscidi tells Richard Miles of CSIS that a Mexican delay on offshore bidding could have a major impact, but that Brazil is likely to maintain the status quo. Venezuela could take years to recover production once it emerges from its current crisis, given the massive investment required to reverse declining oil output.

Lisa Viscidi, Richard Miles

Interviews ˙ ˙ Center for Strategic & International Studies

Mexico’s Problematic Energy Policy

Just as Pemex bonds suffered a downgrading to junk status by Fitch, Lisa Viscidi, director of the Energy Program, sat down with Nathaniel Parish Flannery of Forbes to discuss the state of Mexico’s energy sector, including oil and gas, regulators, and renewables, seven months into the AMLO administration.

Lisa Viscidi, Nathaniel Parish Flannery

Interviews ˙ ˙ Forbes

Mexico’s Energy Reform: Bridging the Skills Gap

Firms across Latin America are complaining about the difficulties of recruiting workers with the technical skills their businesses demand. Lack of adequate skills is becoming a bottleneck for growth in technologically complex industries, harming government efforts to increase investment in strategic sectors of the economy. In Mexico, the energy reform creates opportunities to generate new jobs and educate and train workers in specialized skillsets, but the country will also face challenges in meeting additional demand for skilled labor.

Lisa Viscidi, Rebecca O’Connor

Reports ˙ ˙ Download Report

Tania Ortiz Mena, Enrique Ochoa Reza, David Goldwyn, Lisa Viscidi

Private Roundtable on US-Mexico Energy Cooperation

The energy markets of the United States and Mexico are deeply integrated, to the benefit of both countries and their economies. The new US administration has a clear interest in preserving and expanding this fruitful relationship while advancing its ambitious clean energy and climate goals, both at home and abroad. On March 11, the Inter-American Dialogue held a private roundtable on US-Mexico energy cooperation.

Event Summaries ˙

Air pollution at sunset

Here’s How Mexico Can Clean Up Its Dirty Energy Industry

As delegates from around the world finish up their business in Glasgow at the United Nations climate conference, Mexico has not increased its emissions-mitigation goal, as countries pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Its president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is doubling down on policies that would make his country the second-largest greenhouse gas emitter in Latin America and the 16th largest in the world, even more of a polluter.

Lisa Viscidi, MK Vereen

Articles & Op-Eds ˙