Two years into Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s six-year term, the premier has managed to pass contentious energy reform legislation that will allow foreign energy firms to operate independently inside the country. The government will award the first of these contracts in the opening half of 2015, marking the start of an ambitious effort to revitalize Mexico’s lagging energy sector. For foreign energy companies, 2015 will be an introduction to Mexico’s complex security environment and to its shifting constellation of transnational criminal groups, commonly referred to as cartels. Mexico’s state-owned energy company, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, and its various contractors are already keenly aware of the risks these groups pose. These risks have intensified in recent years as organized crime groups have sought to diversify their operations beyond drug trafficking, expanding into fuel theft. Crime groups have the capacity to organize hydrocarbon theft on a massive scale across […]