During his daily morning press conference, on Thursday, March 16th, Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated that during the period of neoliberal governments the oil industry was in decline and was almost destroyed, “we had one of the best oil industries in the world”. However, he assured that his government has focused on rescuing this sector.
” All you have to do is consider that in 40 years a new refinery was not built and this coincides with the whole neoliberal period because they bet on selling crude oil and buying gasoline abroad, they left the six refineries that were built in the whole history in a terrible situation”, he pointed out.
AMLO announced that during the past governments 110 contracts were awarded to explore and exploit oil in Mexico, most of them granted to foreign companies. However, of these tenders only three are being executed, he regretted.
“They issued the contracts to foreign companies, 110 contracts to explore and exploit oil with shared utility systems, and of those only three are being executed, and out of 3 million barrels the production provided by these companies does not exceed 50 thousand barrels,” the president explained.
TYT Newsroom