This June, Pemex and Petrobras, the state fossil fuel companies of Mexico and Brazil respectively, announced a two-year partnership to jointly explore mature and deepwater oilfields in the Gulf of Mexico.Details of the exact arrangement have not been released, despite both companies being state-run and campaigners’ calls for greater transparency, but subsequent reports suggest that exploration could focus on the Bay of Campeche, near the Gulf’s largest marine protected area and several vulnerable reef habitats.Both companies have downplayed the significance of the deal as a preliminary step, but environmental campaigners said it risks tying both nations to decades of fossil fuel emissions and pollution.Supporters hope the partnership will help staunch a recent run of safety incidents at Mexican petrochemical sites.
Environmental organizations have raised concerns that a recent partnership between the state petrochemical companies of Brazil and Mexico will commit both nations to decades of fossil fuel production, increase the risk of oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, and displace coastal communities with industrial expansion.
On June 23, Brazil’s Petrobras and Mexico’s Pemex announced a two-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) outlining their collaboration. The document itself was not published, but in a short press release, the companies describe cooperating to “increase production in deepwater” and “mature fields … in the Gulf of Mexico”. The agreement also refers to ancillary fossil fuel products such as fertilizers, biofuels and carbon capture, according to the release.
