For nearly 80 years, Mexico kept its borders closed to foreign oil interests, with the state-owned and -run Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) being the only entity allowed to drill for gas in Mexican territory. In 2017, then-president Enrique Peña Nieto opened up Mexico’s considerable oil reserves to foreign oil companies and investors for the first time in nearly a century, but the long ailing Pemex has shown few signs of improvements thanks to the injections of foreign cash in recent years. The last time foreign interests were permitted to invest in Mexican oil, it did not end well. The Mexican president at the time Lázaro Cárdenas seized foreign actors’ assets, used them to create the aforementioned nationalized oil monopoly Pemex, and exiled all international competitors. And now, nearly a century later, it’s looking as if history just may be set to repeat itself. “Foreign energy companies that began flocking to […]