Mexican leader cites progress against fuel theft
MEXICO CITY — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stopped short Monday of declaring victory in his nation’s fuel theft scourge but said the government was making progress amid frustration over gas shortages.
Long lines continued at gas stations in many parts of the country, but López Obrador asked for patience and said things would soon be getting back to normal.
Security patrols had prevented any new illegal taps since late Friday in an important pipeline that brings gas from the Gulf Coast to Mexico City, he said at a morning news conference.
Mario Avante, 45, who drives a small truck for a cleaning services company, waited a mere 20 minutes Monday morning to fill his tank at a service station in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, while people in other parts of the capital reported waiting four or five hours the day before.
“The gasoline has started to arrive,” he said, calculating that the panic over gas has begun to subside.
More than 5,000 members of the armed forces and federal police are now focused on pipeline security. López Obrador promised to continue the stepped-up security until supplies normalize but said conditions are starting to improve in some places.
He asked citizens to avoid panic buying. “We have enough fuel; it is a distribution issue,” he said
Jalisco, home to Mexico’s second-biggest city, Guadalajara, had seen daily sales drop nearly 40 percent and regain about half that in recent days. Lines as long as 1.2 miles have been seen in the city.
Saiji Bojorquez spent two hours lined up to fill his pickup in Guadalajara on Monday.
“We have all been respectful. Nobody has broken into the stores,” Bojorquez said. “And you learn to conserve gasoline, to demand better public transportation, and I’m carrying my bicycle back there to inflate the tires.”
For those whose jobs depend on keeping tanks full, the shortages have been frustrating.
“Gasoline is part of our work, and that’s where our livelihood comes from,” said Cesar Perez, who delivers food by motorcycle for Uber Eats and was still in line after waiting an hour. “You have to pump gas almost daily. And it has hurt us a bit, but we hope this is for the good of the country.”
On Sunday, Mexico City’s new mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, prompted some consternation among constituents when she called on motorists to follow a calendar under which they would fill up one day a week according to last digit on their cars’ license plates, similar to a smog control system that bars vehicles from circulating one day per week.
She was careful to note via Twitter that it was only a “SUGGESTED” calendar to help people get gas “in a more orderly manner.” But some saw it as a rationing plan and made unflattering comparisons to Venezuela, which has seen severe shortages of all sorts of basic goods amid a deep economic crisis in recent years.
Fuel theft has become a massive problem for Mexico. From January to November last year, 65,000 barrels per day were being stolen, according to estimates by state fuel company Pemex. The vast majority was lost to illegal pipeline taps.