P E R S O N A L S A F E T Y


Personal safety under threat


Kidnap and ransom


surprisingly lower than in other high crime rate countries in Latin America. With a total of 18 homicides, it ranked seventh in 2010, with El Salvador the highest at 61, and Venezuela the second highest at 48, followed by Colombia with 37. However, the violence and the killing


has now impacted on Mexico’s oil and gas industry, which ranks sixth in the world for oil output and 14th for nat- ural gas production. Publicly, state- owned Pemex – Latin America’s largest energy producing company – has been downplaying the extortion demands of the drug gangs in its northern opera- tions, but it has also reduced its output forecasts. In the Burgos basin, which accounts for 20% of the country’s nat- ural gas output and has in excess of 3,000 producingwells, therewas a 13% fall in production during 2010 that wasn’t necessarily the result of declining reserves.


A deadly business Oil employees have been killed. In November last year, a Colombian man- ager of oil


services contractor


The worldwide threat to personal security – onshore and offshore – is at an unprecedented level, writes Nigel Bance. The current pan-Arab revolutions may even worsen the situation.


offers crucial advice to large interna- tional companies, including US oil com- panies, who operate in Mexico. ‘If you are caught up in a roadblock and you can see men with guns, if you can run away, even into a nearby building, then do so. If you can’t, wait until the gunmen reach your car, put up your hands and attempt to convince them that you offer no threat.’ The gunmen, at best, want the


‘O


vehicle, maybe cash. At worst, it is a kidnapping and then lives are in real danger. Road blocking has become


ffer no resistance – whatso- ever,’ is the key advice froma security consultant who


commonplace in Mexico, with buses and tractors used, and little chance for victims to turn around and drive away. The gunmen know, too, that road blocks prevent any police cars from intervening. Specialised car body man- ufacturers in the US and Mexico will armour-plate vulnerable areas of vehi- cles at a cost of some $60,000, so the gunmen are preying on less well pro- tected cars. With 30,000 killings throughout


Mexico, especially in the north, in the four years since President Felipe Calderon took office vowing to take on the drug gangs, the country has gained worldwide notoriety as its gangs express no fear of going to jail. Many of its kidnappers are now using social networking sites, depicting torture and even mutilation, which can extract quicker payment of ransoms. Murders are tallied up daily by the Attorney General’s Office, with 15,273 killings in 2010. Of these, more than half were committed in the states of Chihuahua (which includes Ciudad Juarez,Mexico’s murder


capital), Sinaloa and


Tamaulipas. Ciudad Juarez accounted for more than 3,000 deaths last year, with one projection suggesting this could rise to 5,000 in 2011. Yet, even with these numbers,Mexico’s homicide rate per 100,000 head of population is


Crew of a hijacked ship lined up on deck for ‘proof of life’ count, following two months of negotiations. Photograph taken from an aircraft about to drop the ransom by parachute on the next circuit. Note the skiff in right foreground ready to recover ransom, and another hijacked ship under pirate control at right rear Source: Compass Risk Management, www.compass-rm.com


Weatherford International was shot dead after being chased by five gunmen at an installation in Tihuatian, Veracruz state. He had beenworking at the Chicontepec oil field, a project Pemex has optimistically forecast will eventually yield 100,000 b/d. Other international oil services companies involved in the project


include


Schlumberger and Halliburton. It is feared that recent incursions by Los Zetas gang members at Chicontepec, extorting payments and threatening staff, could affect the field’s forecast 70,000 b/d of production by year end. Los Zetas are known killers and the


group was blamed for the massacre of 72 migrant workers in Tamaulipas in August last year. With 16 Pemex workers kidnapped during 2010, the company no longer identifies key per- sonnel on its websites. Meanwhile, in a bid to curtail the


gangs’ activities, the government has imposed 45-year jail sentences for any corrupt serving or non-serving police officers that are convicted for kidnap- ping offences.


Kidnapping endemic ‘Express kidnappings’ have become endemic, and not just in Mexico. In Mexico City a total of 450 were reported during 2010 (although a lot more unreported attempts are thought to have taken place) while in Venezuela no areas are nowconsidered safe from such attacks. In the oil and gas producing areas of Maracaibo, vic- tims are attacked in car parks, outside


18 PETROLEUMREVIEW APRIL 2011


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