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n Only two days is fulfilled The first year of President Claudia Sheinbaum, the seventh of the fourth transformation, so it is pertinent to stop to count what has been achieved and what is missing with a view to the future. Industrial policy has been one of the central axes of the administration, for which a series of reforms and policies aimed at strengthening the State participation in the economy in strategic sectors have been required. The energy, telecommunications, judicial and now that of national waters have allowed these sectors to be strengthened to become enabling of a dignified and investment life.
We will focus on the effects that the president’s energy reform has had in the two large companies in the country: Pemex and CFE. It is worth remembering that although the constitutional amendment was approved in October 2024, the modifications of secondary laws were issued on March 18, 2025, and there are still many legal instruments to issue, as regulations and provisions. But the positive effects of these changes can be seen from now. The first was the vertical reintegration of both companies, which immediately achieved the disappearance of many costs, which, the “experts” in their eternal wisdom, had created them artificially. An example of this were the “transfer costs”, which were artificial charges that had to be charged between the different parts of the company over operation costs, just by carrying out operations with each other.
In fact, the model left behind is so bad that the only private company in the world that has adopted it in history (Sears in EU) broke and remains a case study of everything that should not be done (to delve into the subject I recommend the book The Republic popular from Walmart). This, together with important operational improvements, allowed both companies to have accumulated profits in the first half of the year. The CFE, by the hand of Emilia Calleja, had 68 billion pesos of profit, and Pemex, by Víctor Rodríguez, achieved 16.2 billion pesos; both to the first semester of 2025. As a whole, the two firms represent 14 percent of the country’s budget revenues and 3.8 percent of GDP. And do we keep wondering why they wanted to privatize them? As a comparison, according to US government data, from 2020 to date in that country, electricity has increased 60 percent and 100 percent gasoline on average. In Mexico, none has risen above inflation, which in that period has been 26 percent.
According to electrical data published in the Energy Information System (SIE), the State directly controls 57 percent of the entire generation, which contrasts with the original plans of the neoliberalism of reducing the State to 16 percent by 2024. The vision of the president has also been reflected in the acceleration of the energy transition in CFE, with a reduction of 7 percent in the emissions of carbon dioxide, to the same carbon dioxide emissions time that has risen 2.6 the electricity generation. It should be noted that, contrary to what the “experts” have repeated, the consumption of coal and fuelle has been significantly reduced with respect to 2024: the use of fuelle for electricity generated 17 percent and coal 11. Compared to 2018, fuelle decreased 59 and coal 52. By the way, both fuels increased its use from 2016 to 2018, when they implemented the energy reform of Peña.
Pemex, on the other hand, has managed to increase its credit qualification, by the hand of a comprehensive financing plan, with the commitment that by 2027 it does not require additional capitalizations to pay the “damn debt” left by Zedillo, Fox, Calderón and Peña Nieto. Important operational improvements are also observed, especially in the part of the value chain that the peñistas destroyed completely: the refining. This being an intensive capital sector, from 2012 to 2018, peñistas experts reduced from 80 to 38 percent the use of the National Refining System (SNR). Something that any student could tell them that it would generate losses due to simple economy of scale. The world average for a lossless operation is 70 percent for refineries. Product of operational improvements and according to the SI and the financial statements, the losses in the refining fell 92 percent in the first half of the year.
The rescue of state companies allows to position Mexico as an extremely attractive destination for investments, stabilizing the basis of the economy, such as the energy sector, and making it an investment enabling and not only generator of private profits. This is reflected in investment figures. Compared to 2024, foreign direct investment grew 10 percent (the greatest increase in the last 10 years), and compared to 2018, the increase is 92. Investment ads are also upward, which reflects the confidence of investors in the country, with ads of more than 26 billion dollars.
The above is reflected in the labor market, which has an unemployment rate of 2.3 percent, the third lowest in the world, and a Gini that positions Mexico as the second least unequal country in North America, only after Canada. The purchasing power of the population continues to increase, and according to IMSS data, the average salary (it is not the minimum wage) has grown 8.5 percent so far this year, and compared to 2018 the increase is 78, which has strengthened the internal market/consumption. Without a doubt, a total change in the economic paradigm of Mexico, but one that has shown that something else is possible.
*Teacher in finance in the energetic sector from the University of Edinburgh. Specialist in Energy Themes
X: @aloyub
