Any company that has a problem that results in losses amounting to MXN $60,000 million per year would automatically take actions to counter those losses , train its personnel so it becomes the axis of the strategy, and allocate resources to fight this issue; any company would do it...except Pemex .
Today, EL UNIVERSAL reveals that the Government's productive company reduced its security training budget from MXN $1,664 million in 2014 to MXN $539 million in 2017.
The main issue Pemex has faced, at least in the last decade, has been fuel theft or “ huachicoleo ”. A few days ago, P resident Andrés Manuel López Obrador revealed that the amount of gas stolen from Pemex every day amounts to 600 tank trucks or around 9 million liters, a quantity slightly higher than the daily consumption of gas in Mexico City , which is equivalent to 70% of the daily energetic demand in the State in Mexico.
With the aim to reverse those numbers, Pemex workers were trained to detect clandestine gas connections , document and physical examinations; in 2015, 1,248 employees were trained but in January 2017 only 113 were trained; a 90% decrease. The training to prevent the theft and commercialization of fuel also decreased from 377 in 2014 to 28 in 2017. Doesn't the illegal subtraction of fuel merits training the largest number of people?
In the last week, there were signs of an imminent collusion between Pemex and criminal bands that steal fuel but according to the information published today, any investigation would have to focus on the private distributors , as for every tank truck Pemex delivers to gas station owners, there are 9 clandestine tank trucks delivering stolen fuel.
It was also been ruled out that the robbery of Pemex tank trucks is the problem since the report of stolen Pemex cars are low: five in 2016, 11 in 2017, and nine in 2018.
There is a lot of information to start fighting fuel theft that was previously ignored and has now reached unthinkable levels. There is no time to waste. Stealing from Pemex is stealing from every Mexican .
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