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Mexican Government News

21 Mar 2023

US Firm Says Mexican Authorities Illegally Seized Its Port Terminal

© Viktor Ketal / Adobe Stock

U.S. construction materials firm Vulcan Materials Co said on Monday that Mexican security forces illegally took possession last week of its port terminal in southern Mexico, as an extended legal battle over its nearby limestone mining activities plays out.The incident took place last Tuesday night at the terminal in the popular tourist hub of Playa del Carmen, and follows a five-year fight with the government over Vulcan's concessions punctuated by sharp criticism from the country's president last year.Vulcan


29 Dec 2021

Cruise Ship with COVID-19 Outbreak Docks in Mexico

© aquatarkus / Adobe Stock

Mexico on Tuesday allowed a cruise ship to dock and disembark tourists in spite of an outbreak of COVID-19 on board, as the government vowed to keep the country open to cruise vessels provided sanitary precautions are met.The ship, Ms Zuiderdam, with some 2,000 passengers and crew, docked in the port of Guaymas in the northern state of state of Sonora, state and federal authorities said.In a statement, the Mexican government said it would accept cruise ships that sought permission


16 Jul 2021

Mexico: New Fishing Regulation Endanger Near-extinct Porpoise Species

Vaquita species has been described as the world's rarest marine mammal - Credit: SEMARNAT/Flickr - Public Domain License

The Mexican government’s decision to loosen its policy of keeping a fishing-free zone around a protected area in the Gulf of California region was a “setback” to keeping alive a near-extinct porpoise species, a conservation group said on Thursday.There are thought to be only between six and 20 vaquita porpoises left and the species is on the brink of extinction as more die each year in fishing nets than are being born, biologists say.Mexico had previously banned boats entering the species’ last sanctuary off the coast of Mexico, known as the “zero-tolerance zone”.

24 Nov 2020

Fincantieri to Open Ship Repair Yard in Mexico

(Photo: Fincantieri)

Fincantieri is teaming up with the Mexican government to open a new shipyard that will provide repair, conversions and maintenance cruise ships, large cargo vessels and oil and gas vessels.The Italian shipbuilding giant revealed Tuesday that it has signed a letter of intent (LoI) with the Ministry of Economic Development and Labor of the Yucatán State (Mexico) to participate in the design and construction of the new facility, located within the expansion and modernization of the Port of Progreso, the main port of the state, approximately 35 kilometers from the capital Merida.

04 Mar 2020

Activists Protecting Rare Mexican Porpoise Come Under Attack

© David / Adobe Stock

A boat from a conservation group carrying Mexican government inspectors was attacked while monitoring a near-extinct porpoise species in a protected zone of Mexico’s Gulf of California, Mexico’s environmental prosecutor Profepa said.The attack occurred on Tuesday when a boat operated by conservation group Sea Shepherd encountered two small vessels engaged in illegal fishing in the area. Fishermen threw Molotov cocktails as part of the attack.In early February, Sea Shepherd reported


30 Jan 2018

Mexico's Oil Reform a Boon for Hard-hit Oil Service, Seismic Firms

© flyingrussian / Adobe Stock

Oil service and mapping firms still emerging from an industry recession have received a boost from about $800 million of data sales to energy firms considering bidding for Mexican oil and gas blocks. Mexico will on Wednesday hold its most important auction since a 2013 reform ended the 75-year monopoly on the energy sector held by state-run oil firm Pemex. The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto hopes the deepwater sale will attract tens of billions of dollars of investment to turnaround a slump in the country's oil output. Seven previous auctions drew investment pledges of $61 billion.

09 Aug 2016

Javier Swirls Toward Mexico, no Hurricane Seen

Tropical Storm Javier lost a little strength on Monday evening as it traveled towards the southern part of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. The storm was moving northwest at 5 mph (8 kph) and had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (97 kph), the NHC said. "A weakening trend is forecast to begin by Tuesday afternoon," it said, adding that Javier was about 30 miles (48 km) south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas, a popular getaway for U.S. visitors on the peninsula. The NHC had earlier reported that the Mexican government discontinued a hurricane warning for Baja California, after the storm failed to pick up strength on its path northward.

07 Aug 2016

Six dead in Mexico as Earl Triggers Landslides

Six people died in eastern Mexico on Saturday after they were buried in landslides caused by intense rainfall from the remnants of now-downgraded Tropical Storm Earl, an emergency services official said. The six deaths involved two separate families in eastern Veracruz state, emergency services spokesman Manuel Escalera said. He added that local authorities were continuing to monitor rising rivers and saturated soil that could trigger additional landslides. Earl's maximum wind speed dropped to 30 mph (48 kmh) by Saturday afternoon, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. It was located approximately 105 miles (169 km) east of Mexico City, after pounding portions of Central America and crossing Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula over the past couple days.

22 Dec 2015

Schlumberger, Statoil Execute Multiclient WAZ Survey in Campeche Basin

Schlumberger announced today that Statoil Gulf of Mexico LLC has signed an agreement to license a large part of the WesternGeco Campeche wide-azimuth (WAZ) deepwater multiclient seismic survey in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The license also includes collaboration with WesternGeco in the seismic processing phase. “We are pleased to have the opportunity to collaborate with Statoil in this breakthrough project, which is the first WAZ multiclient broadband survey in Mexican waters of the Gulf of Mexico,” said Maurice Nessim, president, WesternGeco. A fleet of eight vessels is conducting the survey in the Bay of Campeche for the three-year project. The project follows the Mexican government opening licensing rounds to non-government companies for the first time.

18 May 2015

PGS ASA - First Mover Offshore Mexico

Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS) commenced operations of a MultiClient 2D seismic program offshore Mexico on May 16th. The two 2D vessels Atlantic Explorer and Sanco Spirit will acquire multiple projects recently approved by the Mexican government. The first program to be acquired is the Mexico Well Tie MC2D which will provide clients with an excellent grounding for understanding the hydrocarbon prospectivity in the area. Fast track products will be available in June 2015. "PGS is proud to conduct its first commercial seismic acquisition project in Mexico after approval of the Mexican Energy Reform," says Gregg Parker, Regional President NSA MultiClient in PGS.

08 Apr 2015

North Korea Warns Will Act to Get Back Ship Held by Mexico

North Korea accused Mexico on Wednesday of illegally detaining one of its ships with some 50 crew and warned it would take "necessary measures" to release the vessel, which United Nations sanctions monitors say belongs to a blacklisted shipping firm. The 6,700-tonne freighter Mu Du Bong, which had come from Cuba, ran aground in July on a reef 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Tuxpan in Mexico's Veracruz state. Mexico said the ship remains in the port of Tuxpan. North Korea's Deputy UN Ambassador An Myong Hun told a small news conference on Wednesday that the Mu Du Bong was not linked to the blacklisted firm, Ocean Maritime Management Company, and therefore not subject to U.N. sanctions.

20 Sep 2014

Tropical Storm Polo Threatens Battered Mexican Resort of Los Cabos

Tropical storm Polo barreled nearer on Friday to the Mexican Pacific resort of Los Cabos where thousands of troops were restoring order following widespread chaos caused by Hurricane Odile at the start of the week. Odile plowed into the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula on Sunday as a category 3 hurricane, causing major damage to beach resorts and sparking widespread looting. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said a tropical storm warning was in effect from Santa Fe to La Paz on the normally arid peninsula, adding that Polo could dump rains from Jalisco state to the southern port of Baja California. At around 2100 GMT, Polo was moving northwest at 6 miles per hour (10 km per hour) and is expected to veer further westward over the next 48 hours


27 Aug 2014

Reflex Marine to Bring FROG-6 into Mexico

L-R: Víctor Manuel Santillana Santos, GINEMEX administrative director; Isaias Roberto Santillana JuÁrez, GINEMEX general director; and Luis Fernando López Martínez, GINEMEX commercial and project manager

Reflex Marine has been granted approval by the Mexican Merchant Marines to sell its crane transfer device, the FROG-6, in Mexico. The certification is a result of Reflex Marine working with the Mexican government’s testing agency, the Centro de Normalizacion y Certificacion de Productos (CNCP) for over a year, as well as the national oil operator PEMEX with the help of its local partner GINEMEX. The FROG-6 was also exhibited at the Petroleum Exhibition and Conference of Mexico (PECOM) where it received a huge amount of attention from operators, crew and the media.

03 Jun 2014

Pemex Selling 7.86% of Repsol Worth $3B

Mexico's national oil company Pemex is selling a 7.86 percent stake in Spanish oil firm Repsol, worth about 2.2 billion euros ($3.0 billion) at current market prices, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank, the banks handling the sale, said on Tuesday. The sale, to be carried out through an accelerated book build, is nearly all of the Mexican firm's holding in Repsol, where it is the company's third largest shareholder with an 8.75 percent stake. Mexican government officials had opened the door to a Repsol stake sale in the past few weeks when Repsol appointed a chief executive officer whom Pemex had not backed. The sale comes before Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is due to make his first official visit to Spain on June 9-10.

08 Aug 2011

Port of Houston Authority Wins Gulf Guardian Award

The Port of Houston Authority has won a first place 2011 Gulf Guardian Award for a far-reaching project to reduce emissions in the Gulf. The Port Authority and its partners, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/Office of International Affairs, the Mexican government, including the State of Veracruz, SEMARNAT (Mexico's Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources) and PEMEX (Mexico's state-owned petroleum company), Maersk Line and Hamburg Süd, won the award in the Bi-National category. Established in 2000, the Gulf Guardian awards were developed by the EPA's Gulf of Mexico Program Partnership to recognize and honor the businesses, community groups, individuals and agencies that are taking positive steps to keep the Gulf healthy, beautiful and productive.

04 Mar 2009

Unions Against Mexican Shipments

Unions representing workers around the globe in the mining and maritime industries announced that they will protest shipment of goods to and from Mexico to pressure the Mexican government to end its support of corporate attempts to destroy the National Miners' and Metalworkers' Union of Mexico known as Los Mineros. The unions, representing hundreds of thousands of dockworkers and miners in North America, South Africa, Australia and the UK, plan to conduct demonstrations in countries as diverse as the U.S. and New Zealand. The Mexican government is backing Grupo Mexico, that nation's largest mining corporation and the third largest copper producer in the world


25 Apr 2002

Enviro Fugitive Caught

Sherman Smith, owner of Seawall Construction, a Seattle area marine construction company, was surrendered to the U.S. Marshall's Service in Tucson, Ariz., on April 1 by the Mexican Government. Smith had forfeited $20,000 bail when he failed to appear for trial in federal court in Washington State in May 1996 and had been living in Mexico. Smith was previously charged on Sept. 27, 1995, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle with violating the Clean Water Act. The charges arose from an oil spill that occurred when a tug sank in Puget Sound. Witnesses alleged that Smith had not properly maintained the tug and knew it was taking on water. Previously, in 1989, Smith had been convicted of pumping oily bilge water into Puget Sound.

03 May 2002

Environmental Fugitive From Seattle Taken into Custody

Sherman Smith, owner of Seawall Construction, a Seattle area marine construction company, was surrendered to the U.S. Marshall's Service in Tucson, Ariz., on April 1 by the Mexican Government. Smith had forfeited $20,000 bail when he failed to appear for trial in federal court in Washington State in May 1996 and had been living in Mexico. Smith was previously charged on Sept. 27, 1995, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle with violating the Clean Water Act. The charges arose from an oil spill that occurred when a tug sank in Puget Sound. Witnesses alleged that Smith had not properly maintained the tug and knew it was taking on water. Previously, in 1989, Smith had been convicted of pumping oily bilge water into Puget Sound.

26 Jul 2001

Mexico Seeks To Lure LNG Projects

Struggling to meet a growing deficit in its natural gas supplies, Mexico is hoping that regulatory changes will lure new liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects by as early as September. Mexican government officials and interested companies discussed regulatory changes for new LNG terminals, which would help meet gas demands growing at a 10 percent clip annually, the ministry said. The move comes as Mexico fights to keep up with growing needs for the clean-burning fuel from both consumers and gas-fired power generators. Although Mexico has vast reserves of natural gas, the largely state-run industry has failed to invest in the fields to bring them on line for production.

13 Mar 2006

APL Panama Finally Freed

The APL Panama finally broke free from the sandy beach where it ran aground Christmas Day. It was 4:40 a.m. when the 874-foot container ship returned to the sea. Less than three hours later, the vessel was two miles offshore, undergoing inspection of its hull, while bulldozers worked to restore the beach where the ship spent the past 75 days. Under general average, the commonly used international legal procedure, the expenses will be shared by the vessel's German owners, Mare Britannicum Schiffahrtsgesellschaft MBH & Co.; APL, the global container transportation company that chartered it; and the numerous cargo interests. The amounts are subject to negotiation.