HVM team signs primary sponsor
The thought of selling Pemex to private foreign investors has tickled the minds of many Mexican political and economists. They know that if Pemex is privatized a huge load of their debt would be eliminated overnight. However, the thought of not having control of its own oil is sacrilege. It would be un-nationalistic and that would hurt the ego of Mexicans throughout the nation.
Since NAFTA, many national services and companies (e.g. Telmex, Banamex) have been privatized and Pemex remains one of the few government owned income generating assets that Mexicans would hate to see privatized.
12/25/04 Where does Pemex rank in terms of world oil production? What about the other oil companies involved in racing?
1. Saudi Arabia 9.9 Million Barrels per Day (MBD)
2. United States 8.8
3. Russia 8.5
4. Iran 3.9
5. Mexico 3.8 (Pemex)
6. China 3.4
7. Norway 3.3
8. Canada
9. United Arab Emirates
10. Venezuela
11. Britain
12. Kuwait
13. Nigeria
14. Algeria
15. Brazil 1.8 (Petrobras)
16. Libya
17. Indonesia
18. Iraq
19. Kazakhstan
20. Qatar
21. Angola
22. Argentina
23. Egypt
24. India
25. Malaysia 0.8 (Petronas)
26. Oman
27. Australia
28. Colombia
29. Syria
30. Yemen
31. Ecuador
12/25/04 We are hearing that the Mexican fuel monopoly Pemex has signed to be the primary sponsor of the HVM team in 2005, which looks to be an all-Mexican team of Mario Dominguez, Michel Jourdain Jr. and possibly Roberto Gonzalez if they decide to run a third car. We also heard that Gigante would scale back their sponsorship due to financial woes but Tecate was looking to do something. The signing of Pemex, if true, will be welcome news because the Mexican sponsorship market for both Champ Car and the IRL has significantly fallen off recently. If you recall, Pemex was the old Brabham F1 sponsor (early 80's) when Hector Rebaque was Nelson Piquet's teammate. This would also be welcome news in light of the tragedy that befell the team this week when two crewmembers were killed in an auto accident while driving back from Mexico City with a show car. Mark C.