By Fester:
One of the things that has been puzzling me about the narco-insurgencies in Mexico has been the fact that the cartels and smuggling gangs have not been hitting the Mexican oil export structure. The Mexican government relies on oil exports for over 40% of the national budget and it gets pays for delivery of a barrel, and not the production of a barrel.
The cartels can most likely fracture the Mexican state and deprive it of vital revenue streams...
the big source of revenue that is immediately vulnerable is the Mexican oil exporting infrastructure. Right now the Mexican government has a sales agreement to supply oil for $70 per barrel until the end of this fiscal year. That agreement only applies to oil that is delivered. Hammering the fairly limited Mexican export infrastructure would be a significant escalation of violence and strategic threat with the possibility of bringing the United States into Mexican territory and precipitating a massive crisis of legitimacy for the Mexican government.
The oil export infrastructure is a bit more robust than the Iraqi infrastructure that was hammered for four years, but not significantly so. There are only a few major pipelines that feed the export ports or cross into the United States. One of those pipelines goes through the most violent city in Mexico before it crosses the border at El Paso, Texas....
Attacking the oil export infrastructure would be a significant escalation as it would be an explicit strike against the legitimacy of the state.
John Robb is passing along a potential reason why the infrastructure has not been attacked. The cartels are bunkering and being parasites upon the infrastructure. Smuggling expertise is being transferred across domains from drugs and people to oil shipments to create new revenue streams for smugglers and other associated actors. Keeping the infrastructure up and operational at near normal levels allows for 'mild' parasitism to occur without drawing a strong response.
I'm still surprised that the pipelines and pumping stations have not been attacked in a systemic manner yet, but the bunkering/smuggling profit angle makes some sense as a counter-incentive.
Fester, you puzzle easily. There is no reason on God's good Earth that the cartels (which are producers and distributors of drugs, few of which are narcotics to anyone but the DEA) would have any interest whatsoever in attacking oil fields and refineries. Projecting from the ones I have met, they are not revolutionaries. Many of them are, relatives of government and business elites themselves. That is how they were able to flourish for such a long time with impunity.
ReplyDeleteThey are very practical people who consider themselves businessmen. They have, over the years, developed a highly energy dependent infrastructure. Though some drugs are carried in backpacks of ambulatory border crossers, most are transported by land, sea, and air and a disruption in energy supplies would be as damaging to their situation as it would be to the governmental and societal infrastructures.
All groups in conflict with a government that is trying to at least appear as though it is hunting them down are not insurgents. Think Mafia not Che Guevara.