Diesel deliveries in Baja slow to a trickle
Soaring prices in U.S. drive demand in south
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 4, 2008
TIJUANA – The search for diesel led Daniel Rojas and his 18-wheel Freightliner from Pemex station to Pemex station one afternoon this week, but each time he heard the same stories: It hasn't arrived. We're still waiting. We've run out.
While gasoline has continued to flow, shuttered pumps and long lines have greeted diesel customers across the state of Baja California in recent days – the result of a dramatic spike in demand for low-cost Mexican diesel created by rising U.S. prices.
It boiled down this week to a delivery problem, said officials from Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.
Representatives of the government oil monopoly told state officials that they haven't been able to move trucks fast enough to deliver diesel fuel because demand is up 30 percent at some places along the border. Subsidized Mexican diesel yesterday sold for $2.17 a gallon in Tijuana, less than half of what it sells for in San Diego County. Diesel shortages have been reported this week from Mexicali, the state capital, to San Quintin, a major agricultural area south of Ensenada.
The rise in fuel sales south of the border in recent weeks has raised a politically sensitive question of whether large numbers of Californians are driving south to take advantage of Mexican government subsidies, thus depleting the supply. In a June 20 statement, Pemex said it would give preference to stations that attend to “national demand.”
Joaquin Aviña, president of the Association of Gas Station Owners of Tijuana, accuses Pemex of deliberately withholding the diesel. “They're rationing it as a preventive measure so we don't sell it to the Americans,” he said.
Others won't go that far. The Baja California governor and business leaders said that the demand from California drivers hasn't been the driving market force and that Pemex has failed to understand the buying habits of cross-border residents.
“It's our commuters, our truck drivers who carry exports to the United States,” Gov. José Guadalupe Osuna Millán said at a news conference. “The concern is that the subsidies are benefiting norteamericanos, but that is not the case.”
By such accounts, a typical consumer would be Jorge Huckabee, a 49-year-old driver waiting recently in his tractor-trailer at a Pemex station in eastern Tijuana. Huckabee, a Rosarito Beach resident, said he used to buy half of his fuel in Mexico and half in the United States as he delivered construction materials from Los Angeles to Baja California. But now he's filling up only in Mexico.
However, truckers have to find a station with fuel. Tijuana resident Rojas ferries televisions assembled by Samsung in Tijuana across the border to Otay Mesa, where U.S. truckers pick them up. Rojas said he normally makes three trips a day, but as he searched for diesel, he was able to make only one trip Tuesday.
Cross-border differences in fuel prices have long been a fact of life in the region. A decade ago, large numbers of Tijuana residents headed north to San Diego to buy gasoline after being hit by a Pemex price increase.
Critics say Pemex's failure to respond quickly is already costing the economy, and they fear the repercussions will worsen if the delivery problem isn't solved.
Although some California residents have been adding tanks to vehicles so they can buy extra fuel in Mexico and take it north, many business leaders say those customers are a tiny minority. Rogelio Badillo, who directs the Tijuana office of a national trucking association, said he has heard of Mexican drivers filling their tanks and then selling the diesel at a large profit across the border, but no specific cases have emerged.
Across Tijuana, transportation companies have been cutting back service because of the lack of diesel. Gregorio Barreto, whose two companies operate 1,400 buses and minibuses, said he has never experienced such difficulties finding diesel in his two decades in the business.
“Fortunately, students are out of school right now, and that's given us some breathing room,” Barreto said. “But the fear is that this could turn into major chaos.”
Smaller companies that provide transportation for maquiladora employees also have been suffering. Because of difficulties in obtaining diesel, Bolex de Mexico, which manufactures and assembles cables, has had only two buses in recent weeks instead of the usual four. The company's 680 employees have nonetheless been showing up, comptroller Edgar Perez Castillo said.
Alfonso Alvarez Juan, head of the Business Coordinating Council, said businesses have largely weathered any negative effects of the diesel delivery problem. But with production stepping up this month, Alvarez and others are getting nervous.
Energy analysts say the delivery problems in Baja California point to larger questions for Pemex as the Mexican government keeps down fuel prices with close to $20 billion in subsidies. The oil company's future is part of a broader debate in Mexico over energy reform.
The diesel situation in Baja California “is just a microcosm of the situation at Pemex,” said Jeremy Martin of the Institute of the Americas in La Jolla. “It's an inefficient state monopoly that's not finding nor producing nor refining enough oil.”
Pemex's main storage facility for Baja California, in Rosarito Beach, has in the past 10 days received two shipments of diesel totaling 350,000 barrels, ending a supply problem that developed in the middle of last month because of the high demand. Pemex has told state officials that the delivery schedule of its tanker trucks has been stepped up to 240 a day from 200.
Questions sent to Pemex's Mexico City headquarters this week went unanswered, though a spokesman in Guadalajara briefly answered questions by telephone yesterday.
“It is not a lack of will; it is an excess of demand,” spokesman José Luis Moreno said. “We are working to find the best solution. Pemex is not just standing by.”
Tijuana Mayor Jorge Ramos said Pemex officials have pledged to increase Baja California's fuel supply by 50 percent. The situation should be resolved within a month, he said.
State officials are asking Pemex to send a high-level representative to Baja California to solve the problem. Whatever the reason for the delayed deliveries, no one would disagree with Osuna's demand this week: “They need to speed it up.”
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