Like Texas, our neighbor south of the border is what you might consider to be oil-rich. Yet as gasoline prices continue to fall here in Texas, there are reports of a critical gasoline shortage in Mexico, fueling long lines at the pump. Some say this has to do, in part, with Mexico’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO. Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData, says AMLO has set out to combat fuel theft, which is having an effect on prices.
“They’ve lost billions of dollars each year, basically due to pipeline siphoning,” Smith says. “[But] the policies he’s employed … focusing on shifting products by trucks rather than pipelines has caused massive fuel shortages across the country.”
What you’ll hear in this segment:
– How AMLO is trying to crack down on black-market gasoline
– How Mexico’s reliance on imported gasoline is causing the shortage at gas stations
– How the shortage is affecting U.S. gasoline exporters
Written by Caroline Covington.
