PEMEX or PEXINDU in USA?
Part 1 of 4
José Angel Gutiérrez
joseangelgutierrezbooks.com
voiceofthemainland.blogspot.com/voces-index
After decades of turmoil and revolution beginning with the Magon brothers in Baja California to Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa did the Mexican people own their own resources. All the gold you see in the Vatican and other churches in Spain and México were taken without compensation by the Catholic Popes, Archbishops, and Bishops. Lots of silver and other precious metals and minerals also made it out of México without compensation by non-Mexican capitalists. Oil also was taken until President Lazaro Cardenas on June 7, 1938 put an end to this huge robbery. He nationalized the oil citing Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917. The global powers behind expropriation not just in México but world over began a boycott of Mexican products especially Mexican oil. World War II forced them to drop the boycott and begin buying Mexican crude oil from the national corporation the government created: Petróleos Mexicanos, PEMEX for short.
The government of México in 1977 came to the rescue of the City of Crystal City, Texas whose natural gas supply was cut-off for failure to pay the price increase guaranteed by contract. The city sued and lost on appeal (535 S.W. 2d. 722). The US Supreme Court refused to hear the case. México’s PEMEX had offered to supply Cristal with crude oil to make fractionalized natural gas. Not one US refinery would accept to do business this way. To this day, Cristal remains the only Texas city without natural gas, relying instead on butane and propane gas.
Similarly, the way México was treated in 1938 with a boycott, Cristal’s leaders asked PEMEX to license them to use the name and supply them with gasoline for retail sales. This also was prevented by the Texas Licensing and Regulatory Commission. Temporarily, at the suggestion of Juan Angel Guerra, who later became the District Attorney in Willacy County, Texas, a couple of gas stations owned by Chicanos agreed to sell gasoline at cheaper prices to members of a new cooperative created to economically hurt the all other White-owned gas stations. Guerra had done that in Willacy County. His efforts there and in Crystal City were ended by the non-stop sabotage, fires, shooting, and vandalism of these cooperatives. Cars who made purchases at these cooperatives were also targeted for fire bombings. No one was ever apprehended or charged for these terrorist attacks and resulting economic damage.
In the 1990s, the government of México again considered extending PEMEX into the US but that project never materialized. A major problem faced by PEMEX was and still is the theft of gasoline from pipelines. Last 2009, the US Department of Justice investigated and found millions of dollars’ worth of gasoline had been stolen and sold to US refineries. Houston’s Tramino Petroleum’s CEO was found guilty of buying this illegally obtained gasoline and sentenced to 3 years’ probation and fined $10,000. In 2010, US Homeland Security returned to México’s PEMEX some $2.4 million dollars from tax revenue of stolen Mexican oil. Others allege that corruption within PEMEX is of greater concern than theft. For example, political contributions in excess of $200 million dollars to the major political party, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), from PEMEX officials; payments in excess of $1 billion dollars to non-existent employees; and fraudulent payments for contracts of crude oil to the Brazilian conglomerate, Odebrecht; and, a $5 million dollar payment to PEMEX CEO Emilio Lozoya Austin to help the candidacy of Enrique Peña Nieto who was elected president of México (2012-2018).
Just this May 2026, while driving along some interstates in Southern California, I noticed a PEMEX sign on a gas station just off I-15 near Hesperia, California. I could not resist, made a U-turn at first safe chance, and found it just 3 blocks from the freeway exit. I spoke to the cashier who would not let me see or photocopy the operating permit for the name of the owner. She said he was a Hindu man., formerly from India. According to her, this man was her boss . He and his brother owned 2 more gas stations with the PEMEX name and logo in the area. I asked why they opened a PEMEX gas station and convenience store in this area. Promptly, she said, “Lots of Mexicans here in this area and growing. They are brand loyal.” In other words, good customers.
The tanker refueling the pumps while I was there had the name of Huntaway, US DOT permit number 3326020 and the California permit number of 552408. The gasoline price was a few cents cheaper than other California gasoline franchises, but for Costco and Sam’s which are always cheaper. I dug into all this information and found that I was not discovering breaking news; PEMEX has more than a foot inside the US economic door. There are at least 6 other PEMEX stations in Texas, mostly the 5 in the Houston area and one in Pasadena; 5 in California; and 1 in North Carolina. And, pending is the purchase by PEMEX of a Shell refinery in Deer Park, Texas. Know that when you gas up at a US PEMEX gas station and convenience store you are buying from the Mexican government via a Hindu family located in the High Desert area of Southern California. Hindus from India send money back to other family still in India. They do not send money to Mexico.
The Mexican government should make PEMEX grant those franchises to Mexicans in this other México. Mexicans in the US do send money back to families in México. In 2020, Mexican origin people in the US numbered 37.2 million, 11.22% of the total US population. In 2026, the estimate of Mexican origin population in the US is 40 million. The majority of us are in California, some 34. 11%; Texas is at 26.11% , and Arizona is at 5.3%. We are a good market and as the clerk at the Hesperia, California PEMEX said we are brand loyal. So why does PEMEX allow franchises in the US to be owned by Hindus and not Mexicans?
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