Nigerian methods move to Mexico

The Nigerian Movement for the Emancipation of the Nigerian Delta (MEND) group has waged an effective infrastructure sabotage and intimidation campaign in the Nigerian oil production regions.  MEND has consistently shut in 20% to 40% of total possible Nigerian oil production, and thus 18% to 36% of total foreign earnings for most of a decade now.

MEND has used a variety of means to impose its economic will on foreign oil companies and the Nigerian government.  It has used long littoral maritime strikes, basic sabotage that would be familiar to any member of the French maquis, and a targeted kidnapping and intimidation campaign against key foreign and domestic technical workers.  Even when a kidnapping fails, it increases the security costs and friction.  The Nigerian methods of shutting in a major oil industry differs from the Sunni Arab Iraqi method due to its lower reliance on high explosives against a few brittle pipelines.

Zenpundit caught a good piece in the LA Times concerning cartels engaging in Nigerian methods against PEMEX, the Mexican national oil company, and its major natural gas fields:

Now the cartels have taken sabotage to a new level: They’ve hobbled key operations in parts of the Burgos Basin, home to Mexico’s biggest natural gas fields.

Forced to defer production and curtail drilling and maintenance in a region that spreads through some of Mexico’s most dangerous badlands, the world’s seventh-largest oil producer has become another casualty of the drug war.

In May, gunmen wearing camouflage and tennis shoes kidnapped five Pemex workers as they rode to the front gate of the Gigante No. 1 natural gas plant in the Burgos Basin. One man was a mechanic, another specialized in pumps. All were dressed in their crisp khaki uniforms with the Pemex logo, ready for long shifts. They have not been heard from since.

The kidnappings, plus the reported disappearance of at least 30 other employees of subcontractors in the same region, have terrorized a community where jobs on the oil rigs and at the gas wells are handed down, father to son, for generations….

Ramirez, the senator, said the cartel responsible, probably the Zetas, may be after technical information to elude the measures Pemex is taking to guard against the rampant thefts of gas and oil.

A complete shut-in is not the objective of the Zetas (who by the way, seem to be losing the intra-cartel conflict).  A complete shut-in of the northern Mexico oil and gas industry means there is no one else paying for the infrastructure upkeep and immediate pumping costs.  Parasites die or migrate to new hosts when the current host is dead, and the same is the case when an infrastructure attack is too successful as the profitable black market created by a successful campaign disappears.

Instead, the Zetas or anyone else who is beginning a systemic campaign against PEMEX’s production and distribution infrastructure, including its key employees, will be seeking to crimp the flow and divert economic rents into their own pockets.