Oil Crisis in the Global South: A View from Mexico’s Gulf Coast
BY LISA BREGLIA
Across the frontlines of energy production in the Global South, an oil crisis is long simmering. This is not an oil crisis as we already know it: in other words, a crisis stimulated by market models of supply and demand, or a crisis abstractly negotiated by giddy futures speculators, or even a crisis as experienced by stretched consumers paying at the pump. A global perspective can expand our understanding of “oil crisis” to the frontlines of oil-affected zones across the Global South, whether the Niger Delta, Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo, or the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador, to name just a few. This perspective takes us to critical understandings of zones of production that have become, through the actions of both states and multinational companies, zones of disaster.
One long-emergent but little known frontline is the center of Mexico’s nationalized oil industry: Cantarell. The largest field in Mexico, production is led by the parastatal company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and supported by contracted firms including Halliburton, Bechtel, and Schlumberger. The oil field complex is located 80 kilometers from Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico. The field was discovered in the 1970s by fishermen from Isla Aguada, a small community to the east of Carmen on the Yucatán Peninsula. After scurrying to develop the technology to launch their first offshore endeavor, Pemex started production at Cantarell in 1981. It became the third largest-producing field in the world, with a projected lifetime output already surpassing 12 billion barrels.
At the time of its discovery, the most productive area for oil exploitation happened to coincide with the most productive fishing region. For three decades now, intense oil and gas production as well as all of the associated support and infrastructure that accompanies this heavy extractive industry has come to the shores of Campeche. For the very same fisherman, who found that slick of oil, very little of this black gold seems to come their way. Rather, a very obvious decline in the livelihoods of the Isla Aguada fisherman, tied closely to a decline in their captures, is apparent.
Today, many of the community’s nearly one thousand fishermen do not fish at all for most of the year, as low captures do not compensate for the price of running the small boats’ diesel engines. An overwhelming number of local residents see Pemex as the major negative force in their demise. However, both overfishing and pollution have contributed to emptying the waters to the extent that many families in Isla Aguada rely on state aid to survive. This sort of dependency is a social condition characteristic of the strategic underdevelopment seen across oil-affected zones—a designation recently employed by Pemex to described the targets of their funding programs. A curious situation has resulted. For these oil-affected communities on Mexico’s Gulf Coast, both a significant cause of their demise and yet the only hope for their future centers on the actions of the same protagonist: Pemex. Every year, Pemex bankrolls projects for environmental protection and local development in communities like Isla Aguada. They also fund “Low Capture” compensation payments to registered fishermen. However, these funds have neither been long term nor consistent and are more likely to take the form of what Pemex has to offer than what a community needs. And if the energy reform or privatization initiative proposed by President Felipe Calderón is passed this year, it is more than likely that the oil industry will withdraw from such social and environmental concerns.
Environmental activism and acquiescence on the part of the state has led to one seemingly positive gain for the environmental concerns: the establishment of the Terminos Lagoon Flora and Fauna Protection Area (APFFLT) within which Isla Aguada is located. A federally managed zone, the park comprises 705,016 hectares of the largest and most ecologically diverse hydrological ecosystem in Mesoamerica. It is home to a wide array of land and sea mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and shellfish. Among the APLFFT’s endangered species are the manatee, ocelot, jaguar, black-handed spider-monkey and green sea turtle. The Lagoon itself serves as both breeding ground and nursery for many species of fish while its coasts, marshes and wetlands feature an extensive array of flora, including several species of mangrove. Where the Lagoon waters meet the Gulf of Mexico right on the shores of Isla Aguada, a population of up to 3,000 bottle-nosed dolphins make their home.
But since the very establishment of the APFFLT, serious contradictions in the area’s appearance, maintenance and management show that the protected area is far from a pristine wildlife refuge. Though beset with logistical issues such as understaffing and a lack of signage and vehicles, structural and ideological problems stem from the environmental agency’s relationship to Pemex and the true meaning of protection as practiced on the ground. At the heart of the issues facing the APFFLT past and present include the de facto wide diversity of land use within its boundaries—ranging from fishing and cattle grazing to highly developed urban infrastructure — and the pressures of a growing population. The overwhelming contradiction the agency’s officials seem unable to account for is the role of oil operations in this scenario—not only those of Pemex, but increasingly those of multinational private contractors.
One example is the urban population displacement by the oil industry. Though just a small percentage of the Terminos Lagoon protected area is inhabited, this populated area included three municipalities and the second largest and fastest growing city in the state of Campeche, Ciudad del Carmen. Estimated from 2005 census figures, the total population living within the APFFLT is just under 300,000. Within the very limited space of Isla Aguada, population is growing rapidly as the cost of living in nearby Ciudad del Carmen is becoming prohibitive for non-oil industry workers. Both Pemex and private contractor employee earn salaries and benefit packages far beyond what the average Mexican worker would earn. Property and rent prices in Ciudad del Carmen reflect the market’s saturation with oil industry money, and nonoil workers are forced to the margins—in this case, to the sandy shores of Isla Aguada, more than an hour away. New housing construction—some of it irregular and unregulated—relies upon cutting into remaining mangrove stands. Little to no public services are provided not only in newly developing areas, but also in established communities. Clandestine trash dumps surround Isla Aguada, as well as nearly every population center within the APFFLT.
As the protected area is managed by a federal government agency, concerned citizens and environmentalist groups have long suspected collusion between the APFFLT and Pemex. For some, this was confirmed when in July 2008 an oil rig was spotted very close to the shores of Isla Aguada in eyeshot of the mouth of the Lagoon. Rumors spread through the fishing community like wildfire that three platforms were slated for immediate erection within the Lagoon itself. While there is no actual evidence to back up these rumors, there is obviously no confidence on the part of local residents that protection will work in their favor against the further encroachment of oil production activities. Whereas it would seem that an environmental protection agenda would overtime rehabilitate the fishing industry in Isla Aguada and reduce the incidence of hydrocarbon contamination, this most likely will not come to pass.
Meanwhile, the APFFLT emphasizes that the greatest threat to the protected area lay in the activities of residents and tourists. Others, including representatives from the local environmentalist organization Marea Azul, strive to emphasize the role of Pemex. Frequent oil spills—most of which go unreported and unacknowledged by officials—certainly do have a great impact. The most recent significant spill was the October 2007 Usumacinta accident. During a serious storm on October 23, the floating Usumacinta rig hit the Kab 101 platform. Twenty-two workers died during a rescue attempt from the damaged platform.
During the crisis that ensued on the buckled and leaking platform, 422 barrels a day were spilling into the Campeche Sound for several weeks. Pemex Director General Jesus Reyes Heroles claimed that as such a small producer (3500 barrels per day of petroleum and 7 millions of cubic feet of natural gas), posed a minimal threat to the environment. To the consternation of environmentalists, he took a “it could be a lot worse!” attitude. Pemex director Reyes Heroles downplayed the Kab 101 spill, by invoking an earlier spill in Cantarell’s history, Ixtoc I. During the oil field’s exploratory phase, a drilling accident caused a 13 million barrel spill that remained uncapped from June 1979 to March 1980. Known as the “Ixtoc I blowout,” this disaster still holds the record as the worst unintentional oil spill in history.
Thirty years later and a nearly complete dearth of information on the environmental impact of the Ixtoc spill makes it practically impossible to compare the damage between a “small spill” like Kab 101 and the largest spill in history, Ixtoc I. Yet from the nearby beaches of Campeche, reports soon came in of a black-stained sea and noxious odor. State delegate representing the state’s attorney for environmental protection (PROFEPA), Jose Carlos Martínez León, dismissed the alarm, claiming that the noxious substance washing up on the beaches of Ciudad del Carmen were not from the Usumacinta spill. Instead he went on to explain, that it was fuel from other boats which were sunk in the area as a security precaution. The small amounts of oil spilled in the Gulf, he said, were not a cause for alarm.
Fishermen, environmentalists and others in Campeche were unwilling to accept yet another excuse and answered with shouts of ecocide. By the official toll, 16,000 barrels of oil and 19.6 million cubic feet of natural gas were released into the air and sea. Pemex will most likely pay a fine, estimated at $280,000. Fishing cooperatives in Isla Aguada and throughout the coastal region are already laying claim to this sum in compensation for their further loss in capture. However, to date, no comprehensive environmental impact study has emerged, neither preliminary nor ongoing.
As the global economy profits from oil crisis panics, frontline communities, such as Isla Aguada, will see the effects of the post-peak oil economy come into even sharper relief. Not only will the pressure be felt on an already collapsing fishing industry, but also the future does not bode well for the only plans local residents have sketched out: ecotourism project based on the flora and fauna diversity of the APFFLT. This uncertain future is leveraged on Pemex and the private sector protecting an already fragile and damaged coastal environment.
Lisa Breglia (lbreglia@gmu.edu) is Assistant Director of the Global Affairs Program at George Mason University (http://globalaffaris.gmu.edu).
