Mexico's Constitution may bar foreign oil firms from drilling

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: herald

MEXICO CITY -- Almost a century after its constitution was drafted, Mexico is in knots over the meaning of a single article dealing with oil.
President Felipe Calderón wants the state oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, to contract with private foreign firms to build desperately needed refineries and drill for deep-water oil.
But it's not clear that Mexico's 1917 constitution allows it.

The constitution came out of the Mexican revolution, which began in 1910 to overthrow a 30-year dictatorship, restrain the Roman Catholic Church and redistribute wealth and land, much of it in the hands of foreigners and the church.

Regarding natural resources, the constitution was explicit.
''The direct dominion of all the natural resources of the continental shelf and the underwater (bases) of the islands, corresponds to the nation,'' the article says.
Back in 1917, there wasn't yet a state oil company. The Ford Model T automobile was just nine years into mass production, and Article 27 of the constitution was more about land rights and mining than black gold.

On March 18, 1938, a date every Mexican school kid knows by heart, President Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized foreign oil companies, citing the constitution. The biggest was Standard Oil, founded by oil baron John D. Rockefeller, which today lives on as Exxon Mobil.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/more-info/story/625840.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. May?

It does.

There is no may.

[Javaman]

6. That was my first thought. no may about it.

This is the spin masters trying their best to get amerikans angry at the mexicans for not give us more of their oil.

[pattmarty]

2. that'll be changed in a big hurry.

[pattmarty]

3. that'll be changed in a big hurry.

[High Plains]

4. A desperate gambit by Calderon. The constitution is clear.

Fucking with Mexican sovereignty around oil could be his downfall if he doesn't watch out.

[Raster]

5. The Texas-American Petroleum Mafia wouldn't give a rodent's rectum for the Mexican Constitution

or Calderon, for that matter. Big Oil must maintain it's profit "pipeline," so to speak. And then there's that little Alamo incident...

[Judi Lynn]

7. It's beautiful seeing the people openly discussed what had happened to the extent

they had a popular song about it. From the article:

A popular song from the era, Corrido de la Expropriacion, immortalized Cárdenas' act, boasting that ``he expelled the companies/who exploited the riches/without paying royalties/they filled mansions with gold/undressing our country of its precious treasure.''

Here, we're expected to worship people who bite, kick, and claw, or far worse, their way to excessive wealth, and wildly fight every effort to get them to pay their share, or act like human beings.