PEMEX claims gringos are stealing natural gas!!!

Petroleos Mexicanos’ production unit filed an amended lawsuit against Shell Chemical Co., Marathon Petroleum Co. and ConocoPhillips (COP) Co. alleging they and other U.S. companies traded natural gas condensate stolen from Mexico.

“Even absent knowledge or intent, however, the defendants’ use, purchase, and sale of stolen Mexican condensate in the U.S. was without right or title from the Mexican government, and therefore, was wrongful under the laws of Mexico and the U.S.,” Mark Maney, an attorney for Pemex, said in the Jan. 27 amended complaint filed in federal court in Houston.

The cases are Pemex Exploracion y Produccion v. BASF 4:10- cv-01997 and Pemex v Big Star Gathering Ltd, 4:11-cv-2019, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston).

2011 the year governments woke up to the good money in oil spills!!! (oh yeah and they're bad for the environment/community too)

Brazil’s threatened indictment of Chevron Corp. (CVX) and Transocean Ltd. (RIG) executives after offshore oil leaks shows that regulators from the North Sea to the Indian Ocean are stepping up scrutiny after BP Plc’s 2010 disaster.



Brazilian authorities have said they may prosecute employees, shut operations and exact more than $10 billion in fines after the leaks at the Frade field 230 miles (370 kilometers) off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The spill occurred 19 months after an explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and triggered the biggest offshore U.S. oil spill.

Governments around the world are paying closer attention to how energy explorers drill into high-pressure deposits of crude and natural gas as much as 8 miles beneath the sea surface. Chevron’s Brazil incident took place after a ConocoPhillips (COP) leak in China and prior to what may be Nigeria’s biggest spill in a decade at a Royal Dutch Shell Plc facility.


“There’s been just such a rash of them that governments have got to act tough” with oil companies, Allen Brooks, a managing director at energy-investment bank PPHB LP in Houston and Chevron shareholder, said in a phone interview. Since the BP accident “every spill after that is heightened in terms of media attention and obviously government concern.”


ConocoPhillips was criticized by the People’s Daily, China’s Communist Party newspaper, for “negligence, cover-ups and cheating” in its handling of a June leak in Bohai Bay. Premier Wen Jiabao ordered a “thorough” investigation in September.

In Nigeria, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) shut its 200,000 barrel-a-day Bonga field this week after a tanker-loading accident caused less than 40,000 barrels of crude to leak.