Energy Advisor

Fluvio Ruíz Alarcón, Mexico-based oil and gas analyst: “After exhausting the agro-export model of economic development in the 1970s, the state transformed Pemex into a resource accumulator. From being a fundamentally secure energy supplier, Pemex became the country’s main source of tax revenue. Thus, the economic resources generated by the oil company have been used for decades as a substitute for a progressive fiscal reform, and Pemex ended up becoming a kind of indirect mechanism through which to appropriate oil income by big capital. Pemex’s role as the main source of tax revenue has been exacerbated since the economic crisis of 1982. Its tax burden has surpassed, year after year, 100 percent of its operating performance. Pemex has had to borrow just to pay off taxes and duties to the ministry of finance. In fact, until 2014, Pemex was obliged to pay the treasury a daily, weekly as well as monthly amount. In addition,…”