Several years on from the semi-privatization of its oil sector, Mexico has lined up tens of billions of dollars of potential investment in offshore drilling. But just as the fruits of the energy reforms are becoming visible, the entire effort is at risk as the political winds shift against it. Mexico’s oil production has been in steady decline since the mid-2000s, having peaked at just over 3.5 million barrels per day (mb/d). The country’s oil fields are decades-old and losing production, including the Cantarell field, which was once one of the largest producing fields in the world. But it has been in decline for years. The losses from Mexico’s aging oil fields accelerated in 2014 during the oil market downturn, and output fell below 2 mb/d last year. State-owned Pemex has controlled the oil sector for decades, but that changed under the liberalization effort in 2013-2014. Since then, the […]