As production declines, state-run Pemex struggles to find new reserves under daunting restrictions on foreign involvementCarlos Morales Gil, head of exploration and production for Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, Mexico's state oil company, is sunburned. But it's not because of his frequent visits to offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico; that out-in-the-sun-too-long look is from a weekend spent in a dusty ring, waving a red cape in front of raging 550-pound bulls.
Morales' passion for amateur bullfighting may come in handy in his day job, where he commands thousands of engineers and roughnecks attempting to coax oil from Mexico's complex onshore fields and from thousands of feet below the ocean floor. Like his bosses at Pemex, the world's sixth-largest oil producer, Morales needs grit and fancy footwork to keep the oil flowing in spite of the many restrictions placed on the company by nationalist politicians determined to keep foreign oil companies from partnering with Pemex.
As Mexico's Congress prepares to debate an ambitious energy reform (BusinessWeek, 4/24/08) aimed at modernizing Pemex so that it can stem a precipitous drop in the country's oil production, engineers such as Morales are racing to drill as many wells as possible to discover new reserves. Last year, Pemex drilled 700 wells; this year, around 900 will be completed. "Not many oil companies in the world do that," says the 54-year-old Pemex veteran.
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