The miracles of modern engineering and, specifically, fracking and deepwater drilling are rapidly changing the risk-reward assessments of petroleum investment. When OPEC members meet in Vienna next week, the organization is scheduled to offer its latest assessment of global demand and projected production. And closer to home, U.S. oil titans are aligning with Mexico’s Pemex to secure access to new crude oil. As I reported in an earlier post , there’s good reason for Mexico’s newfound optimism and popularity. At the time, Pemex, the state-run oil monopoly and world’s fourth largest producer, had just discovered three deep-water deposits in the Gulf of Mexico, with an estimated 26.5 billion barrels of crude oil. And there’s no doubt about the high quality of that crude. So it shouldn’t have surprised anyone when California-based Chevron quietly became the first major international oil producer to partner with Pemex following landmark legislation that Pemex […]