Pemex' Progress

Mexico's President Miguel Aleutian likes to claim as one of the most notable achievements of his six years in office the successful rise of Pemex, the government oil monopoly. Recently, when his government raised a monument to Pemex in Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma, the pedestal bore not only the famous 1938 expropriation decree of President Lazaro Cardenas, but quotations from a 1936 pro-expropriation speech by Aleman, then the youthful governor of Veracruz. Last week, in the final month of his presidential term, President Aleman flew to the Gulf Coast jungles to inspect Pemex' new Tenixtepec field, the country's biggest strike since Mexico took over its oil industry.

New Pools. Modest as the Tenixtepec find was (estimated output for 1953: 50,000 bbls. a day), the new field, along with another recent Pemex find in central Tabasco, showed that the Mexicans were at last beginning to bring in new oil to supplement the old fields the foreign companies left them. Already, U.S. crews working for Pemex were drilling in the swamps west of Tenixtepec in hopes of tapping new underground pools. Next week, a new ten-inch pipeline will carry the first Tenixtepec oil into Pemex' 1,200-mi. national network.

Pemex itself, ridden with politics and labor trouble when Aleman came to power, is now a going business operation. In the opinion of one oldtime Mexico City oilman, it "stands out like a 20,000-ft. mountain when compared with other Mexican government operations." Over the past six years, as Pemex has ended its anti-U.S. policy and sent technicians north of the border for advanced training, production has increased an average of 15% annually, is now almost double what it was the year before expropriation. Two big refineries have been built at Reynosa and Salamanca, three other refining units have been completely rebuilt, and three more refineries are under construction. This year Pemex is expected to gross $231 million, hand over about $70 million to the national treasury.

Clean Hands. Much credit for Pemex' transformation belongs to hard-driving Antonio Bermudez, the millionaire whisky distiller from Chihuahua whom Aleman. drafted to boss the show in 1946. Apparently contemplating retirement last week, Bermudez said: "I have handled over 9 billion pesos, and have the right to say my conscience and my hands are clean." Many Mexicans, convinced that only Bermudez keeps Pemex from ruin by political grafters and grifters. hope that he will be asked to stay on. In Bermudez' office sits a life-size bust of President-elect Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, but all Bermudez says is: "My commission from President Aleman expires the last day of this month. That's all I know. I'm not saying one word about the future."

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