Mexico sues, says drug cartels steal natural gas condensate to sell in U.S.

HOUSTON, Texas - Pemex, Mexico's national oil company, claims that violent drug cartels are stealing as much as 40 percent of the natural gas condensate from the enormous Burgos oil field in Northeast Mexico, and that the massive thefts are "encouraged and facilitated" by U.S. oil and pipeline companies that buy the gas and sell it in the United States.

Pemex Exploración y Producción (PEP) has sued nine oil and pipeline companies - seven of them based in Texas - and two of their officers, in Federal Court.

Pemex claims that "in recent years" drug cartels have "hijacked at gunpoint PEP tankers" in remote areas of the oilfields of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Coahuila states; that "PEP officials were kidnapped and threatened with violence," and that "the cartels built tunnels and even their own pipelines to facilitate the thefts."

The thefts, which have cost Mexico at least $300 million since 2006, have been so brazen that Pemex "enlisted the assistance of the Mexican Army, which was mobilized to guard the fields," according to the 24-page complaint.

Pemex says the U.S. companies "knowingly or unwittingly" buy the stolen gas for sale in the United States.

Mexico launches investigation into deadly oil pipeline explosion

MEXICO CITY - Mexican officials say investigators have begun probing a massive oil pipeline explosion that killed 28 people.

Valentin Meneses says a commission has been formed in tandem with state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos to investigate. Menses is interior secretary for the state of Puebla, where the blast took place in the town of San Martin Texmelucan.

Petroleos Mexicanos, Latin America’s largest oil producer, expected to reopen the pipeline as early as Dec. 20 after an explosion killed 28 people and scorched homes in the central Mexican city.

Pemex Chief Executive Officer Juan Jose Suarez Coppel and Deputy Refining Director Francisco Fernandez told reporters on Dec. 19 in Mexico City that the explosion may have been caused by thieves trying to steal fuel, “There are elements that point towards an illegal tapping, but we won’t have a definitive cause until the affected pipeline gets a metallurgical investigation," said Coppel. The probe is expected to last at least three months, Fernandez said.

The 30-inch Nuevo Teapa pipeline in San Martin Texmelucan, Puebla state, exploded at 5:50 a.m. local time on Dec. 19, causing crude to flow into a nearby river and a cloud of smoke to blacken the sky, the Milenio television network reported.

Pemex said that it had five million barrels worth 9.3 billion pesos ($750 million) stolen in 2008. Pemex has detected more than 600 cases of illegal tapping from its pipelines this year, Suarez Coppel said.

Texas company linked to Mexican oil smuggling

EDINBURG, Texas - An Edinburg gas company has joined the growing list of U.S. businesses linked to selling petroleum stolen from Mexico’s state-run oil monopoly.
Arnoldo Maldonado of Y Oil and Gas pleaded guilty on Sept. 25 to one count of conspiring to receive and sell stolen natural gas condensate illegally tapped from pipelines run by Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex).
According to filings in a Houston federal court, Maldonado, from January to March, arranged three separate shipments of condensate he knew to be stolen. Using 22 tanker trucks, the company shipped the stolen product through unspecified land crossings with the intent to sell it to larger businesses in the oil and gas trade.
Maldonado’s arrest makes him the second Texas oil executive to face criminal charges in the two-year-old investigation.
In May, Donald Schroeder, president of Houston-based Trammo Petroleum, pleaded guilty to purchasing millions of dollars in stolen condensate and arranging for it to be shipped north on barges departing from Brownsville.

Two more Texas firms implicated in thefts from Pemex pipelines

HOUSTON - Valley Fuels and Continental Fuels have ties to a smuggling scheme involving stolen petroleum products from Mexico, according to U.S. authorities.
Valley Fuels denies the claim.
Government officials confiscated funds from bank accounts of the two companies as part of an investigation of the sale of stolen natural gas condensate, court records show.
However, Jim McAlister, a prosecutor in the case, said the seizures do not indicate that the U.S. believes the firms knew the products were obtained illegally.
Valley Fuels has said the funds seized by the government were not the result of illegal sales of condensate, according to court records.