From 180 to 14 984: the expansion of plans of "huachicol" with Fox, Calderón and Peña Nieto

Andrés Manuel López Obrador's federal government remains focused on fighting fuel theft and His next stop is scheduled in the Gulf of Mexico, where the navy has already detected an "illegal traffic" in gasoline..

"We will present what we are doing at sea, because there is also theft and illegal fuel traffic in the Gulf "said the president at his morning press conference.

López Obrador and his representatives before the federal legislators, on both fronts, the government of the Republic reported on Monday the results that throw to date the strategy against the "huachicol" in the country, which cost the country more than 60 billion pesos a year (about 3 billion dollars).

The federal strategy aims to reverse the number of clandestine takeovers left by previous governments, its number rose from 180 in 2002 to 14,984 in 2018, according to Secretary of Energy, Rocío Nahle.

These numbers, however, decrease. López Obrador said on Monday that since early January, fuel theft has dropped 65% from previous yearswhich saved about 5,000 million pesos.

According to the numbers that he showed that day, in 2018, the average flying time was 56,000 barrels a day, reaching 81,000 barrels last November and rising to 74,000 between December 1st and 20th..

From the operator, the number of flights fell to 5,000 barrels on December 31 and in January the ranges ranged from 12,000 to 38,000 barrels per day stolen fuel.

"In silver, they represent over 5,000 million pesos of savingssaid López Obrador, although he acknowledged that his government had to increase spending on monitoring pipelines and transferring fuel to pipelines.

He also trusted that This week, his government will solve supply problems in states like Jalisco and progress in other entities such as Nuevo León, Guanajuato and Michoacán., who are most affected by the "huachicol" and where there are still delays and problems to fill the service stations.

López Obrador also rejected the criticisms made by former President Vicente Fox for his strategy. "I'm not going to get hooked," he said of the incessant comments on the social networks of the former PAN president.

"The only thing I can say, is that responsibility in a political system like ours has the president. If the will of the president changes things, "he said.

Homero Mendoza, Chief of the General Staff of the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena), also informed that from 7 to 27 January, 1,684 sabotage alerts on Pemex pipelines were registered. Of these, about 600 were tracked and the rest could not be located because the system detects the leak, but not its exact location.

In defense of the strategy before the opposition

At noon, it is the Secretary of Energy, Rocío Nahle, and the director of Pemex, Octavio Romero Oropeza, who met with federal lawmakers to explain and defend the federal government's actions against "huachicol".

There, Nahle explained the growth pattern of illegal catch in the country, which happened from 180 in 2002, under the government of Vicente Fox, to 14,894 the last year of the government of Enrique Peña Nieto.

This last figure represents a growth of 43.72% compared to 2017, when the authorities located 10,363 illegal takeovers.

"It is clear that before these figures, the Mexican government should act immediately and that is why this strategy was implemented"He told lawmakers.

Romero Oropeza, in turn, badured that the decision to close pipelines was not an eventas described by the PAN coordinator in the Chamber of Deputies, Juan Carlos Romero Hicks.

"The increase in thefts of gasoline has confronted us with a dilemmato continue to solve the problem in the immediate future so that it continues to appear every day or to face the underlying problem to solve it once and for all, even if that poses a disadvantage "

He claimed that the closure of the pipelines, which caused shortages in some parts of the country, was not applied "in a simplistic way" but in accordance with the law. "He did not act in a discretionary manner but in accordance with the law"he said.