- 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.
Mexico extracts the majority of its fossil fuels from the southern Gulf of Mexico, but has seen production declining in recent decades. Although the partnership is aimed to increase the country’s energy sovereignty, energy researchers and environmentalists say questions remain about the terms of the deal and its repercussions.
“This is an effort from the Mexican administration to increase oil barrels, but at what cost,” Renata Terrazas, vice president, Mexico, of marine environmental group Oceana, said to Mongabay over video call. “Right now we’re just guessing. There’s no transparency about what this actually means, and that’s one of the things that we fear the most.”
The partnership comes after Pemex suffered two major safety incidents this spring. In February, an exploratory natural gas well near Las Choapas, Veracruz, exploded and continued to release smoke and gas for nearly five months. In March, an oil spill near the Gulf of Mexico contaminated 933 kilometers (580 miles) of shoreline. A month later, Pemex admitted the pollution was caused by a leak in one of its pipelines.
Leonardo Beltran Rodriguez is an energy researcher and consultant who served in the Mexican government’s energy department as energy secretary and was previously a Pemex board member. “Safety is one of the things Pemex has not been very good at […] So if they can learn or at least observe [Petrobras’] practice I think that would be fantastic,” Beltran told Mongabay over video call. “But if you ask me, should they be more public about the partnership? Absolutely.”
Because Petrobras is publicly listed and Pemex trades its debt internationally, both companies are subject to financial transparency regulations, including those set by the New York Stock Exchange and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Eventually we’ll know a little bit more. But it’s incredible that’s only because they have the obligation elsewhere, not domestically,” he added.
Terrezas shared Beltran’s optimism that the MoU could improve Pemex’s safety record, but said that the few terms included in the agreement suggest it may push both companies towards riskier developments. “Mature wells are in shallow waters which are very close to the coastline”, which increases the chances that a spill reaches waterfront habitats, she said. “And more accidents happen in deep waters because it’s more difficult to control what’s going on there.”
Researchers’ analysis of past drilling in the Gulf of Mexico found that safety and environmental incidents increase by an average of 8.5% for every 30.48 meters or 100 feet of well depth.
“If the whole MoU is working to plug the [safety] gaps at Pemex, that would be interesting,” Terrezas added, but would also raise the question of what Petrobras expects in return for sharing its learnings. “Right now we’re just guessing.”
For Beltran, the likely tradeoff was more obvious, “There’s an opportunity for Petrobras to develop an offshore block of the Gulf of Mexico, and that would be a great opportunity for Petrobras or for any other company to be a part of.”
That possibility undermines the Mexican government’s argument that the MoU will increase the country’s energy independence, according to Nancy Viridiana Lázaro Lembrino, senior oceans campaigner at Greenpeace Mexico. “The whole narrative is about energy sovereignty, but the reality is totally different,” she told Mongabay in a video interview. “It’s sacrificing the environment and the well-being of people for nothing.
The MoU will begin by exploring a particularly deep area in the south of the Gulf, off Campeche, Bloomberg reported in August, although an exact location was not confirmed. In 2024, Mexico created the Southern Gulf of Mexico Reefs National Park, the largest marine protected area (MPA) in the Gulf of Mexico. The MPA was designed to function as a marine wildlife corridor, connecting a sweep of coral reefs home to more than 3,000 species. Scientists have described a particular cluster of cold-water reefs, the Campeche Bank, as an “important stepping stone in the regional connectivity” of coral species.
Offshore drilling is banned within the park, but deepwater drilling nearby could expose the reef habitats to “disastrous” pollution in the case of a spill, Terrezas said. Many of Mexico’s existing oil platforms are clustered in Campeche Bay, but in shallower waters.
Pemex and the Mexican government’s energy department did not respond to Mongabay’s requests for comment. On the morning following the announcement, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum downplayed the significance of the partnership and dedicated her daily press conference to the theme of renewable energy investment to increase energy sovereignty in Mexico.
When asked about the deal, she suggested that the companies might “jointly develop some parts of the Gulf” and that Pemex would share its expertize in fertilizer production in return for Petrobras’ oil exploration knowledge. “We’re not going to sign a contract which means losing control of Pemex,” she added, stressing that Petrobras was not a private company, and that the two nations share a political affinity due to their nominally progressive ruling parties.
The press conference was dedicated to what Sheinbaum said was the “historic, unique, huge effort” to produce 38% Mexico’s energy from renewable sources by 2030. Any new oil wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico are not expected to begin production before then.
At first, a spokesperson for Petrobras told Mongabay they were unavailable to be interviewed but could answer written questions. They then declined to answer those questions, because “discussions regarding the memorandum of understanding signed with Pemex are ongoing,” and “the company does not comment on negotiations currently in progress”.
“Any updates will be communicated to the market and the public in due course,” they added in an emailed statement. “Petrobras further reaffirms its commitment to transparency, in compliance with disclosure regulations.
For Greenpeace’s Lázaro Lembrino, the agreement marks only the latest move towards extractivism from a president who once coauthored reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a climate scientist — and made her environmental credentials a not insignificant part of her 2024 campaign for office.
“She lost the environmental cause so long ago,” said Lázaro Lembrino. In the months following the MoU, Sheinbaum’s government has also reopened Mexico to fracking development, despite environmental concerns. “It’s definitely tiring pushing back,” she added. “A lot of people are being affected by energy policy right now, but they’re not taking the science into account.”
Banner image: The Olmeca oil refinery stands at the Dos Bocas port in Paraiso, Tabasco state, Mexico. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)
Citations:
Frías-Vega, J. E., Rioja-Nieto, R., Barrera-Falcón, E., Cruz-Vázquez, C., & Alvarez-Filip, L. (2025). Spatial prioritization for the zonation of a reef system in a new remote marine protected area in the Southern Gulf of Mexico. Diversity, 17(10), 708. https://doi.org/10.3390/d17100708
Muehlenbachs, L., Cohen, M., & Gerarden, T. (2013). The impact of water depth on safety and environmental performance in offshore oil and gas production. Energy Policy, 55, 699–705. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.12.001
Sturm, A. B., Eckert, R. J., Carreiro, A. M., Simões, N., & Voss, J. D. (2022). Depth-dependent genetic structuring of a depth-generalist coral and its Symbiodiniaceae algal communities at Campeche Bank, Mexico. Frontiers in Marine Science, 9, 835789. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.835789
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