Saboteurs attacked four natural gas pipelines in Mexico's Veracruz state today, marking the second time in little more than two months that the country's petroleum infrastructure has been targeted.
Explosive charges were set off in six separate locations on the pipelines operated by the government's petroleum monopoly, Pemex, which link refineries to consumers in Mexico City and other major population centers...
...like the July event, today's explosions appeared to display a worrying level of logistical sophistication.
Targeting valves, above-ground sections and transfer terminals of 30-to 48-inch pipelines, the explosions went off nearly simultaneously in various locations, some of them hundreds of miles apart.
Several of the explosions were north of the port of Veracruz, while others were in the southern part of the state, near the refining complexes of Minatitlan and another in the mountains between the port and Mexico City.
The July attacks were claimed by the Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, a small group formed more than a decade ago by remnants of guerrilla movements.
Communiques believed to be from the guerrillas said those attacks were aimed at forcing the release of two members they accused the government of arresting and secretly holding. Federal and state officials insist they are not holding the men.
There's some serious doubt as to whether the EPR is really responsible, or whether the sabotage is the work of the country's much more powerful network of criminal gangs, who the Calderon administration has attempted to combat with, ah, mixed results. Regardless of who's responsible, they definitely succeeded in inflicting some $erious damage$ - keep in mind, the federal government depends on taxing the shit out of Pemex revenues for about 40% of its budget:
A series of attacks that caused explosions on Mexico's oil and gas pipelines on Monday will cost state oil monopoly Pemex "hundreds of millions of dollars", Pemex Chief Executive Jesus Reyes Heroles said.
Reyes Heroles also told Mexican radio that disruption to Pemex's natural gas pipelines would hit around 25 percent of the country's natural gas supply for at least a day.
With this kind of effectiveness and easy replicability, it may be only the beginning, as John Robb would tell you - or told you, back in December:
Here's on potential method of how it could happen. Analysis of critical Mexican infrastructure reveals a critical flaw. Due to its history as an oil exporter, nearly all domestic fuels and most of its electricity is generated from oil and natural gas delivered by pipelines radiating from the oil producing region in the southeastern corner of the country. Low tech attacks along a 300-400 mile stretch of pipeline would quickly starve the country of the oil needed to generate electricity and refine fuels (the current system has been inadvertently built to maximize cascading failures across multiple infrastructures if properly disrupted). Further, analysis of the pipeline infrastructure would also quickly reveal junctions and pumping equipment that would be extremely difficult to replace (systempunkts). As we have seen in Iraq, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, etc. these anonymous attacks could be frequent, effective, and nearly impossible to interdict. They would also result in an immediate expansion of black markets for fuels imported from the US, generating a useful feedback loop for continued disruption.
Given the level of gang and criminal violence currently challenging the Mexican state [which has been militarized and thereby converted into a war between the state and non-state groups] for supremacy, there is already a large subset of actors that could quickly seize upon this opportunity. Their access to arms (often much better than the Mexican military) and to sources of income independent of the state's function (smuggling of all types into the US) would allow them to thrive at double and triple digit growth rates as state power began to fail. They also have access to a huge pool of people that would be easily enticed to disrupt infrastructure for a few dollars (enabling the costs inflicted by disruption to top $200,000 for every $1 invested in the activity). In short, the dynamic that is produced would be similar to the models of state failure we have seen elsewhere. It would also be almost impossible to stop once it becomes entrenched.U ready for an intensifying and ominously instructive global guerillas-style siege right on our southern doorstep, doggies? One to watch -