Posted on 06/13/2014 5:46:51 AM PDT by thackney
To grasp the difficulties Mexico faces in capitalizing on a North American shale boom, just wander into the dusty landscape due south of the U.S. border.
On one side of the fence, thousands of wells work around the clock in Texas to produce record volumes of shale oil and gas, transforming towns like Carrizo Springs in a modern-day gold rush.
On the other side, violent drug cartels roam above untapped shale riches, leaving behind a trail of blood. The relatively few conventional wells operated by state oil giant Pemex and its contractors close down overnight as a security precaution.
But surging crime, while dramatic, is just one of many obstacles thwarting a Mexican shale boom that is seen as years off at best.
"Organized crime is an additional operating cost companies will be keeping a close eye on," said Alberto Islas, head of Mexico City-based consultancy firm Risk Evaluation.
Bullet-riddled corpses are piling up in and around the city of Reynosa in the heart of one of Mexico's richest shale deposits, a major flashpoint of gang wars where hundreds of troops have deployed in recent weeks.
Since April, there have been dozens of murders in Reynosa, a city of 600,000, as the Gulf Cartel battles the infamous Zetas. The dead include a top Tamaulipas state intelligence officer. The head bodyguard to the state governor has been implicated in the crime.
"We must reinvent ourselves or die," said Federico Alanis, owner of a family-owned aluminum business in Reynosa...
In the last few years, Pemex has drilled fewer than 20 test shale wells in the shale-rich Burgos basin, an extension of the Eagle Ford Formation in southern Texas.
...thousands of wells sunk in Eagle Ford churn out more than 1.2 million barrels each day,...
(Excerpt) Read more at rigzone.com ...
Answer to drug cartels:
Mexican Government Machine gun fire and tanks
You always find the most fascinating articles.
Mexico has abundant natural resources. They don’t have the ability to use them. They are producing crime and corruption instead of a decent country.
If Texas had Switzerland on its southern border, there would be no illegal immigrant problem, but we are cursed with this dysfunctional culture as our neighbor.
Illegal immigrants are the perfect partners for a government that implement Cloward - Piven principles. It speeds the process 10 fold at a minimum.
That's basically the argument I use against the Mexican "You stole our land" types. I tell 'em that in 1847 both sides of the new border looked exactly alike. Fast forward 150 years and our side is booming and prosperous (even before shale) while theirs is crime-ridden and poverty-stricken.
>>we are cursed with this dysfunctional culture as our neighbor.<<
You need to look in the mirror. Do you have any idea how many millions of dollars Americans spend each day for deviate sex, drugs and alcohol. Our society is enough to make most people sick but most people refuse to think about where the problems originate. Our Courts and legislature promote most of the crimes in America and we are so stupid that we continue to re-elect the incumbents so we won’t miss a beat.
So what is the practical limit of horizontal drilling....?
Maximum reach has been about 8 miles, with a monster expensive rig.
Actually, you can vacuum quite a bit in 8 miles....
” Maximum reach has been about 8 miles, with a monster expensive rig “ given enough profit in the process necessity is the mother of invention... unless of course ? there are treaties for this kind of thing of one country taking another natural resources from right under their noses without them knowing about it.
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